Deep Within A Soul
by GhostAlly
Summary: In 'Roots' you have no name. In 'Roots' you have no feelings. In 'Roots' you have no future. In 'Roots' you have no past. All you have is your mission. One young kunoichi doesn't exactly agree with that. SaixOC
1. What?

"**In "Roots"…..you have no name. You have no feelings."**

"**You have no past………you have no future. All you have is your mission"**

_**Such is the way with the members of "Roots"……**_

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I looked up quizzically at Sakura. "Team 7 is going to have new members?"

Sakura nodded. "But only temporary. Kakashi is still in the hospital and until we retrieve Sasuke we need replacements."

I tilted my head at her. "And I'm also on this team because….?"

"Tsunade-sama wants another medic-nin. Your skills are highly adequate…unless compared to mine." Sakura said with a smirk.

I punched Sakura's shoulder playfully. "Maybe so but when it comes to taijutsu I got you beat." Sakura shrugged and started to leave. "Whatever. I'm off to speak with Tsunade!" I waved bye and took off to find Naruto to tell him the news.

I caught sight of him down a street talking with Shikamaru and Choiji. "I see your eating habits haven't changed." Naruto said smirking at Choiji. "You're even more a fatso than before…….AHHH!" Shikamaru tackled him making him miss Choiji's fist by an inch.

Although Naruto was in danger for calling Choiji fatso I couldn't help but smile. Naruto never knew when to shut up and seeing his hyperactive face again after a couple years it made my stomach shake with excitement.

Before Naruto even passed his genin test I've often joined him in his pranks but before I could call out to him or to call Choiji to tell him to knock it off an ink panther appeared and jumped at the three of them.

Choiji, who already had his fist raised, directed his fist at the ink creature instead of Naruto destroying it making splotches of ink fly. Another ink creature arrived to take its place. I looked to where the ink creatures came from and saw a boy with short dark hair who seemed to be around my age painting on scrolls and then immediately turning them into monsters. He had a calm and serene look about him.

From studying the person further I realized he wore the Konoha leaf headband. Why would a leaf ninja attack another leaf ninja? I only came up with a few reasons…

It's just sparring

Ones not really a leaf ninja

It's to test abilities

Choiji crushed the second creature with his enlarged fist and looked over to see who sent the creatures as well as Shikamaru and Naruto. "There he is." Upon seeing him Shikamaru made a hand sign. "I don't know what that guy's after….but that lowlife needs to be captured….and be handed over to the interrogation squad!"

The person started painting again on the scrolls to send out another ink creature. "Go get him Naruto!" Shikamaru cried. "I'll watch your back!" Naruto dashed forward. "GOT IT!!"

When the boy saw Naruto coming at him he did a hand sign.

"_**Ninja Art-Incredible Beasts Imitation Picture"**_

A herd of ink bests appeared from a scroll and lunged at Naruto. "Naruto, just duck!" Shikamaru called to him. Naruto obeyed and Shikamaru did another hand sign.

"_**Ninja Art- Shadow Sewing"**_

Shikamaru's shadow went forward and jetted out into thin shadow strands and pierced into the ink beasts destroying them. Taking the chance, Naruto jumped at the boy and lunged his kunai at him but the boy deflected it with a type of metal rod or something. I was having trouble seeing what exactly was going on because I wasn't really all that close. However I had excellent hearing sometimes even for a ninja and heard their whole conversation.

"WHO THE HELL ARE YOU…!" Naruto hollered at him. The boy smirked at him. "You're pretty weak….for a guy. Do you even have a penis?"

My mouth gaped open. How can someone say something like that to anybody!??! Right in public too!! I'm glad I didn't know the guy or else I'd die of embarrassment. I mean c'mon! The guy insulted Naruto about his ding dong!!! In public!! Okay so maybe only four people were around but still….

As I looked again at the boy to see if I could guess what was really going on he had already disappeared out of Naruto's reach. Now this was interesting. Forgetting completely of why I came to see Naruto in the first place I raced off to find Sakura.

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The same boy with the short dark hair smiled cheerfully. "Hiya…."

Naruto gaped. "Y……You!!" 

Sakura, who was never told that this boy attacked Naruto earlier stared in confusion. I studied my new teacher for the time being. I didn't know what to make of him. He went by the name of Yamato.

"Um…for now I will be acting in place of Kakashi-san." He said. Sakura ignored him. "Naruto, do you know him?" she asked referring to the boy Naruto was glaring daggers at.

"Sorry about earlier." He said. "I wanted to see the abilities of my new teammate. After all I need to know exactly how much I'll have to help out the little nut-less loser."

I stared at him. There he goes again! Saying Naruto has no ding dong!

"WHAT'D YOU SAY?!!!" Naruto tried to lunge at him but Sakura held him back. "Hold on! He's going to be our teammate! You can't just attack him suddenly!" She looked over at the boy and frowned. "Although……you're not being all that friendly."

The smile never left the boy's face. "Ahaha…..is that so? I like your type. Friendly, butt-ugly girls."

This time it was Yamato's turn to hold Sakura from killing the boy. "WHAT'D YOU SAY?!! ASSHOLE!!!"

"Hey, did you just forget what you said to Naruto?!" Yamato told her. "At any rate the four of us will be on a mission together." Yamato looked at the four of you and frowned. "…but geeze look at you guys. I don't have time to toss you in a cage and get acquainted…..so get to it, introduce yourselves."

Naruto leered at Sai. "Uzumaki Naruto."

Sakura glared at Sai from the corner of her eye. "I'm Haruno Sakura."

I kept my face calm. Letting someone like this guy annoy me is something I'm not gonna let happen. "I'm Akizakura."

The boy, oblivious to Naruto's and Sakura's glares closed his eyes and smiled. "Hi. My name is Sai."

"Well at least we have introductions out of the way." Yamato said. "Now to explain the mission that we, Team Kakashi, will undertake." Naruto, Sakura, Sai and I listened intently.

"The four of us will head for the tenchikyou…..there we will find the Akatsuki spy who infiltrated Orochimaru's organization, capture him, and bring him back to the village." Yamato continued. "This is a chance for us to acquire information on Orochimaru and Sasuke. If we succeed with the mission, it will allow us to gain invaluable information in the planning of both Orochimaru's assassination and Sasuke's retrieval. So keep your minds on your goal!"

Orochimaru. How I hated that guy. I didn't even need to talk to him to despise him. I watched with the ANBU as he was fighting the third. Sasuke was someone I liked to think I knew pretty well. Damn him and his ego. I was one of the hundreds who didn't forgive him for leaving to join Orochimaru.

Sure, it's great that he thinks his family should be avenged….but to join up with Orochimaru? Now that's just insulting.

Yamato instructed all of us to meet at the village gate with supplies in one hour.

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"That Sai asshole…..I don't like him I'm tellin' ya!" Naruto said to me and Sakura as we walked. "Why does **he **have to be Sasuke's replacement? Team Kakashi was doing fine with just three people!"

I notice Sakura frown sadly at Naruto. Poor Haruno. Still never got over her crush over Sasuke even though he betrayed the village. I often feared that her crush would doom her at some point…

"He may have a foul mouth…." Sakura said looking forward. "But don't you think that Sai is similar to Sasuke in a way? Like his face or his voice." I whipped my head at her. "NO WAY! Their both totally different!!"

Sakura looked at me. "How so?"

"Well for one thing……..um……well Sasuke has……..a HUGE ego! Yeah! See there are differences!!" Sakura shook her head at you. "That's hardly a reason."

"I agree with Akizakura!" Naruto shouted. "They don't look anything alike! Sasuke looks tons better!! Err; no wait….he doesn't look as bad I mean!" Sakura's eyes widened at what Naruto said and smiled. "You're right, Sasuke-kun does look a little better than Sai." She said.

"NOT JUST A 'LITTLE BIT'! SASUKE DOESN'T LOOK ANYWHERE NEAR THAT BAD!!"

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"Sai is not only rude but he's late!" Naruto shouted as a couple minutes passed. "Someone should go and drag his ass over here so we can start out mission!"

"Don't look at me!" Sakura replied. "Akizakura can do it." My eyes widened. "What!? Why me!?" Sakura turned to me. "C'mon Akizakura. When we met him you were the only one who didn't look like you wanted to tear him limb from limb. If me and Naruto go it's only going to cause problems."

Naruto looked at me. "Yeah just go!"

Jerks. They were gaining up on me. Although I probably could've won against Naruto I couldn't win against Naruto **and** Sakura. I frowned at them. "Kay. Fine. But don't expect any favors from me anytime soon!"

Sakura smiled. "Thank you Akizakura!"

Naruto smirked. "Kick his ass for me!"

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"This is so unfair…" I thought aloud. Just because I was the only one who didn't want to tear the Sai dude limb from limb didn't mean I liked him either. As I approached his house I heard a loud metal sounding clash inside. The kind when you protect yourself from someone else's attack.

I wouldn't immediately have jumped forward to investigate but the thing was the sounds of a real fight didn't follow after. I carefully crept closer to the house to see if I could figure out what was going on inside. I jumped quietly onto the roof to see if I could see what's going on from a window.

As I found a window and looked through I saw Sai opening an envelope. But that's not what made my gut tell danger was inside that house. It wasn't the kind of danger where Sai would be in danger. The kind that **I **would be in danger if found. Another person with a mask was standing next to him. He spoke.

"Listen to me, with this top-secret mission assigned to you, you are entrusted with the goals of the custodian of our village's future, Danzou-sama." I didn't recognize the voice. I decided I would creep closer.

Everything was going fine until my foot just had to find that one place on the roof that would make a sound. It immediately alerted the man in the mask who threw a kunai with great skill at the roof spot where I once was.

I was fast enough to not be seen and quickly hid in a nearby tree. Luckily for me a cat was taking a walk on the roof and meowed in shock as it ran away from the kunai now lodged in the roof. "Just a cat…" The voice was the one of the man in the mask. "I know that." Replied Sai. There was silence again. I waited and no one spoke.

I was about to jump down when Mr. Mask spoke again. Yes I name people when I don't know their name. "You……..don't tell me your still carrying that thing around…."

Sai's voice was quieter. "This is….."

How I wish I could see!! If only Sai's stupid roof wasn't so creaky!

"In "Roots" you have no name, you have no feelings…."

Roots? What the hell was Roots?? I always had a hard time paying attention in classes. That was probably one of the reasons I got along with Naruto but like him it cost me big time. So if they ever mentioned this "Roots" thing I knew nothing of it.

"That which supports the great tree of Konoha, unseen from the ground, is the resolve of our organization "Roots"…..don't forget that." Mr. Mask said.

"………I won't." I heard Sai say. Strange. When he was fighting with Naruto he seemed like such a joker but now he seemed…………..sad. But that was only how he sounded.

Sai said nothing. "Just remember…." Mr. Mask said. "Failure will not be tolerated." After I made sure he left I quickly jumped down and ran to the front door. As I raised my hand to knock it opened revealing Sai. I could tell he in his eyes he was a little surprised to see me there.

What was I gonna say?

I smiled cheerfully and said the first thing that popped into my head. "Nice weather we're having!"

Okay….not exactly the best plan I've ever had but what did anyone expect? I didn't think it through. Sai continued to stare at me with his calm look. That look made me very uncomfortable.

"Uh….the others are waiting at the gate and you didn't show….so they kinda sent me to get you and-"

Sai gave me a smile. The same one he gave to Naruto when insulting him. "You're the other ugly girl. We haven't spoken until now have we?"

I didn't return his smile nor let myself show anger. "That's true. Now what say we quit dilly dallying and get going? The others are waiting." I turned around to walk off quickly and I could hear Sai following me.

We were almost to the gate until he broke the silence. "You don't like to talk much do you ugly?"

"You don't like to keep quiet do you ass-face?" I retorted at him. Sai merely did his smile as the gates to the village opened and then all five of us headed out on our mission.

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_**Well there's the first one. I hope I didn't make too many mistakes with this…**_


	2. Hot Springs

I'm not sure how long it was but Naruto started walking along side Sai and had been staring at him disapprovingly ever since. Sai noticed of course. "Is there a problem?" He calmly asked Naruto.

"I guess you could say they look somewhat similar in a way……….and there voices are kinda alike…." Naruto muttered to me and Sakura but I'm sure Sai easily heard.

"Would you please stop staring at me like that?" Sai asked. "I won't hesitate to smack you."

"WHY DON'T YOU JUST TRY NOT PISSING PEOPLE OFF WITH EVERY DAMN THING YOU SAY! ASSHOLE!" Naruto shouted at him.

"Hey it's not like I have any particularly bad intentions here." Sai said calmly.

Naruto pointed at him. "Liar!" Sai smiled. "It's just that I'm trying to position myself as being this kind of character."

"That's what people call bad intentions!" Naruto shouted at him. "THAT'S IT! I'VE HAD IT WITH YOU! YOU'RE A COMPLETE ASSHOLE!!"

"Hey, enough!" Yamato ordered. "That's hardly something to just go and say in front of your squad leader, Naruto. Trust and teamwork are the absolute most important things to a team. Surely Kakashi-san taught you that."

I couldn't let Naruto be gained up by Sai and Yamato even if they were fighting like siblings or a married couple of some sort. "Some people are just impossible to work with." I commented loudly hoping Sai would take a hint. I sometimes had a habit of letting people know I don't exactly like them. Sure it's gotten me in trouble but I was good at getting myself out of trouble too…….sometimes.

Yamato frowned both at Naruto and me. "It's hard to believe that you were actually in the same team as the great Kakashi-san…..I mean what's your problem?"

Naruto pointed to Sai. "The problem is that** he **isn't a member of Team Kakashi! The third member of our team, Team Kakashi…..is Sasuke!!!"

Naruto glared over at Sai. "As for this guy……he's just here to take up space while Sasuke is gone. I refuse……..to accept someone like him as a team member!"

Sai smiled his smile at that. "Actually…….I'd prefer it if things stayed that way. Sasuke betrayed Konoha and, despite being the weakling he is, he ran off to serve Orochimaru just to gain power……He's worthless trash, just like Orochimaru, so I hardly want to be associated with him."

I had to wonder right then and there if I was just like Sai. When Sasuke first betrayed the village I continued to talk of how pathetic he was. He wanted to kill Uchiha Itachi and for that he needed power. I still don't understand why he chose to join Orochimaru since I heard Itachi is far stronger than him. Did I sound like Sai did now when he spoke of Sasuke like that? I remember saying similar things like that…..

Naruto clenched his fist and took a step towards Sai. "You……." Sakura put her hand in front of Naruto. "The captain is right, teamwork is what's important." Naruto turned to Sakura.

"As for Naruto and Akizakura……….Sai…………since they don't know you at all……they probably did say a bit too much." Sakura frowned. "I apologize for them both..." Apologize for us both? Don't apologize for me.

"Please forgive them…."

I don't want his forgiveness!!

Naruto frowned sadly at Sakura. "S-Sakura-chan…." Yamato sighed. "I'm glad at least one of you is somewhat tolerable."

Sai never stopped smiling. "That's alright, I'm not really offended at all." Sakura smiled. "Really…..that's good." Then she punched him. Hard. Sai went sliding across the ground. Yamato stared. "Huh!?"

Sai leaned up wiping his mouth but his smile remained.

"As for me…." Sakura said glaring. "I don't want your forgiveness."

I took a couple steps back just in case a fight would start. Well one kinda already did……….but I didn't want to be in the battlefield. Sai stood on his feet. "You sure tricked me……with that fake smile of yours."

Sakura didn't take her eyes of Sai. "You don't know a damn thing about Sasuke-kun, so don't you dare go trying to act like you do." Naruto stared at Sakura. "Next time you say something bad about Sasuke-kun…I won't hold back."

Sai chuckled. "Fine. I won't say anything in front of you then. Still to think a fake smile can be used in the way you used it…..I'll have to remember that."

"You just got yourself hit." Shouted Naruto. "So what's with the grin moron?!"

"A smile is the best way to get someone out of a tight spot, even if it is a fake one. Surprisingly enough, everyone takes it at face value….I read that in a book."

I looked at Sai. "I pity you."

His smile turned towards me. "How so?"

"You think a smile can hide anything and tell as many lies as you want but a smile is not how I read a person's intentions."

"Oh really? Well……my smile this time did not seem to help me this time."

"With this team I don't think it ever will." I said firmly. "Your smile will only awaken anger." Wow. I was kinda amazed with myself as I said this. Usually I was such a goofball and a sarcastic smartass. I wondered if I sounded wise and quickly laughed mentally at the thought.

"_**Four Pillar Prison Jutsu!"**_

The ground broke behind Yamato and a large strong looking cage arose form the ground. "All of you…..if you make anymore trouble than you already have, I really will throw you in a cage." Yamato's face was calm but stern. "After all, limited as our time may be, we still have five days until the rendezvous at the tenchikyou."

That jutsu he just used…I may have not payed much attention in classes but even I knew that was a technique used by the first Hokage. Who really was this guy?! Maybe Yamato was older than he looked and was taught by the first himself? Unlikely.

"As your mediator, I'm going to give the four of you two options to choose from….in order to get better acquainted with one another, you can choose to spend a whole day in this cage here….or we can stay the night at an inn somewhere that has a hot spring. It's your choice."

Yamato then seemed to change into a completely different person. His face darkened and his eyes widened. His voice changed as well. I wonder if needed anger management more badly than Choiji when someone mentioned his weight.

"The four of you probably don't know me very well either…while I do prefer to interact with people in a gentle manner……I'm also not at all opposed to establishing my dominance in a reign of terror." Each of his words were dripping with venom.

The four of us looked at each other. Although I was calm and collected on the outside on the inside I was seriously starting to worry. I figured out then he was not someone you'd want an enemy of. Better late than too late as I always say.

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Naruto sat in a hot spring tiredly. The day was too long. He looked nervously over at Yamato. Yamato smiled. "Ahhh, I must say, it's being together naked like this that let's us guys really get to know each other!" Yamato's evil darkened look appeared again as he looked at Naruto and Sai. "You agree too right?" Naruto jumped up revealing all there is to be seen. "I…..I agree completely!" _"Those eyes…they're ungodly. This is already a rain of terror…..seriously."_

Sai looked over at Naruto and smiled. "Well I'll be damned…..you actually do have one after all." Naruto whipped his head at him. "WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU LOOKING AT?!! WHAT IS IT WITH YOU ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT PENISES!!!"

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Naruto's voice easily reached over to where the we were bathing. The other girls who were bathing around us started snickering and laughing. Sakura was glaring at the wall where on the other side the others bathed. "Damn that Naruto……you'd think he'd be a little bit quieter!"

I looked at Sakura frowning. "Um…Sakura….Naruto is all alone on that side with Yamato………..and Sai." "He'll be fine." Said Sakura sinking deeper into the hot water. I didn't take Sakura's word. I crept a little closer to the wall that separated the men from the girls and sent some chakra to my ears and listened. Don't misunderstand though. Even if Naruto's life was in danger it's not like I'd immediately dart over there butt naked. Nope. Sorry Naruto, I care for you and all but if you're in trouble you're kinda on your own.

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Naruto looked at the wall and heard the girls laughing and snickered. He started to advance towards the wall. Yamato noticed Naruto moving and got out of the tub and put a towel around his waist. "I'll leave you two here while I go back to the room, but first, let me tell you a particularly interesting story Naruto."

Naruto stopped sneaking and listened. "There has been just one time, back when he was young, that the famed Jiraiya-sama was brought to the brink of death…..he was left with six ribs and both arms broken, as well as numerous ruptured organs….." Yamato's dark evil face returned. "It said the cause of it had to do with him…being on the receiving end of the inhuman strength of Tsunade-sama…and it happened after he made the mistake of doing…..exactly what you're thinking of doing right now."

I burst out laughing and won myself some strange looks but I didn't care. I was born weird and I kinda plan on dying weird. Getting strange looks is nothing new for me. I was just planning to listen to make sure Naruto would be alright and I ended up getting my fill of laughter instead. Sakura looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "Akizakura…..are you okay?"

Too bad Sakura didn't know how to send chakra into her ears like I did and listen to what I just heard.

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"Maybe Yamato-sama won't be such a bad teacher after all." I thought smiling as I walked down the inn's hallway with a skip to my steps. I mean the guy had some humor right? The way he used it was a little twisted but hey! I'm not picky……sometimes. I decided to leave the springs early leaving Sakura alone. I tend to get hungry easily and was on my way to get food.

"You seem awfully happy."

I turned around and saw Sai standing behind me with his robe on and of course his smile that had grown to be rather annoying. Still a little upset about earlier I felt like yelling at him right then and there but didn't. "Oh well!" I smiled happily. "Lucky for you I'm in a good mood!"

"Well that's nice." Sai commented but I had a sneaky suspicion that he didn't mean it. He walked past me and I found myself staring at his back.

"Sai."

He stopped and turned his head a little at me with his smile never leaving his face of course. "Yes?"

"You shouldn't smile when you don't want to."

His smile left and I wasn't sure if he was glaring at me. His expression was too hard to read. It was quiet for awhile until Sai finally decided to speak again only this time without his smile. "You said before you don't read a person's smile to figure out their intentions….so basically you don't rely on their expression."

"Yes. I did say that."

"Then tell me how you read their emotions. Their intentions."

At first I said nothing. I wasn't expecting this from Sai. The look he was giving me now made me feel that this was the only expression that was actually true. "There are a number of ways to read people's emotions and something just tells me in my gut that every smile you've shown us is a fake."

Sai 'smiled' again. "Well then I better be careful around you then shouldn't I?"

I stared at him and frowned. "Hey Sai!"

"What is now ugly?"

I raised an eyebrow. "Hey I thought that was Sakura's nickname!"

"It works for you too."

I shrugged it off. "You seem like a really serious guy behind those fake smiles of yours. You can laugh for real right?"

Sai's smile left again. He said nothing and turned away from her. "Why? You……….think you can make me laugh?"

"Yup! I have a plan that cannot fail!" With that I rushed at him and started tickling his tummy. I quickly stopped when I realized his face stayed expressionless. He didn't even move to stop me. He was a statue. I gawked at him. "Holy crap! You're not ticklish!!" I ran down the hallway jokingly screaming. "Sai's not human!! Help!!" I stopped at the end of the hallway and looked back at him. "Not laughing?"

"No." Sai replied calmly.

I scratched my head. "Hmm…..maybe…." I smirked. "Maybe you laugh at other people's pain!!"

And as if on cue Naruto started to walk past me and I gave him a hard punch in the head. His face fell flat on the floor. "AAHHH!! Akizakura!! What did you do that for?!?"

"Still nothing?" I asked Sai ignoring Naruto's pain. He shook is head. I sighed. I was getting absolutely **nothing** out of this guy! "I'll try again tomorrow. I'm tired." I walked off into my room and Sai walked away from Naruto to his room. Naruto jumped up and started yelling at him. "Hey Sai! Did you tell her to hit me!!"

Sai smiled at him. "Don't be so naïve dickless."

Naruto glared at him. "BUT YOU SAW IT TODAY!!! YOU CAN'T CALL ME THAT ANYMORE WHEN YOU KNOW IT EXISTS!!!"

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I woke up with a yawn and reached for my clothes. I got up and as I passed a window I saw a figure outside sitting on a wall. It didn't take me long to realize it was Sai.

I went outside and quietly walked up behind him and peeked over his shoulder. He must have been really focused since he didn't even notice me. "You like drawing?"

He looked at me calmly. "What do you need?"

I smiled. "You really focus on your drawings huh?" Sai did his smile. "Do you wish to punch me like Sakura did?" I kneeled next to him. "You make me sound so evil! I'm totally over that. What you said about Sasuke was just your opinion."

I studied his drawing longer. It was a mixture of dark swirls focusing in on a center point. "Does this have a title?" Sai shook his head. "Not one of my pictures have titles."

"Why not?"

"There's nothing to name them."

"Huh?"

"Nothing comes to mind. I can't think of anything." Sai started to draw again.

"This could be called squiggly. Or maybe squiggles. Cause you know it squiggles." Sai looked at me again calmly. I thought he was going to say something but he kept quiet.

I frowned. "They don't have to be good titles." I picked up one of Sai's drawings. "This one here……these sketches almost look like clouds….so you could title it 'sky' or 'cloud'. It doesn't have to be great."

I set the picture back down next to him. "When you're the artist you're completely in charge." I smirked when an idea popped into my head. "I got it! You're just too lazy to name them so you could just title it "nameless"! And this one could be "nameless 2" and then "nameless 3"-"

"Hey Akizakura."

I turned around and saw Naruto and Sakura. "C'mon we're leaving!" called Sakura. Naruto walked over to you both and looked at Sai's picture. He frowned. "That's nothing special."

I frowned at him. "Don't turn into a sour puss Naruto."

"He's right though." Said Sai giving us his smile again. "This is just like his penis. Nothing special."

Naruto pointed his finger at him. "I'M NOT KIDDING WHEN I SAY I CAN'T STAND YOU. IF IT'S A FIGHT YOU WANT LET'S GO!!"

"That's not it all." Sai smiled again. "I don't think anything of you." Naruto said nothing. Sai began collecting his things. "Want help?" A small notebook caught my eye of which had a drawing of a little boy on it. Without thinking I picked it up. Sakura looked over my shoulder.

"You also drew that?" asked Sakura.

"Yes."

"Can we see it?" Me and Sakura said at the same time.

"No. It's incomplete and it's my brothers."

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_**Okay that took longer to take then I thought to update. Ah well...**_


	3. Companion

Yamato did a hand sign.

_**Wood Type-Four Pillar House!**_

A large house erupted out from the ground. "We'll camp here for the night." Yamato said. Naruto stared at the large house that Yamato just made with his frightening and amazing jutsu.

"I wouldn't really call this camping."

Once inside Yamato called the four of us over to discuss our mission. "Sakura there's something I need you to tell me." Sakura looked at him quizzically. "What is it?"

"It's about Sasori of the Akatsuki. I need to know about his behavior and characteristics because you're the only one who's ever seen him."

Sakura frowned slightly. I only had a faint idea of how Naruto's and Sakura's mission went when they went to save the Kazekage from the Akatsuki. Lord knows that if I had to go against Akatsuki I would rather turn tail and flee. Sure! I could throw pointy stars and poke people in the eyes but I could only do so much.

Yamato basically explained that he would disguise himself as Sasori and meet the Akatsuki spy while we would hide and come out at his signal. I mentally sighed. Ninja missions were so annoying sometimes. The main reason I became a ninja is because my mother thought it would do our village good and I love her to death so I did.

Becoming a shinobi meant dealing with pain and I'm not a big fan of pain so I focused on healing arts too. I actually became better with it than I thought I would but I didn't think that the Hokage herself would send **me** on a mission with team 7. If I had known I was going on such a dangerous mission I would've studied ninja arts more often.

My desire to avoid pain was strong enough that it got me good with medical arts and Tsunade eventually recognized me. I was nowhere near as good as Sakura but still……….of all the Medic Nins the Hokage chooses me. Life is cruel.

Yamato got around to mentioning that our goal was capture. Even if a battle resulted we weren't allowed to kill so then we would lose "valuable information source." Yamato would only call for us if he failed to restrain them.

Then he divided us into teams. And guess who I got with Naruto…..Sai! Happiness! Ponies and Sunshine! Note the sarcasm there……

Sakura was teamed with Yamato. Yamato told me and Sakura since we were the Medic Nins we had to be careful that we weren't injured. I found myself looking uneasily at Sai. I never did figure out if he was good with teamwork. I knew Naruto and Sakura had to be. Kakashi beat it into them.

Sai noticed my staring at him and he smiled at me. "Hiya."

"Yo."

Naruto pointed at Sai. "Yamato! Why the hell am I with-"

Yamato glanced at Naruto with his evil look. **"Pardon?"**

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Next day I asked Sakura where Naruto and Sai went. She reminded me that they were training with Yamato so he could learn what kind of skills they have. I sighed.

The way Yamato kept on insisting that Naruto and Sai work together made me wonder if he'd ever learn that Naruto was really not up for working with him. I made my way over to where they were training and sure enough Naruto was arguing with Sai.

"Please don't lay the blame on other for your minimal amount of ability." Sai said. "Had you not fallen for the captain's obvious provocation, I would have been able to stay hidden without being exposed. You had your clone transform into me, then making it obvious it was your own jutsu."

Naruto looked like he was ready to kill Sai.

"It's not pleasant to fight while looking after someone who can't even keep himself in check. I just worked with the success of the mission in mind."

I felt like I had to do something so I spoke up. "Sai, teammates make mistakes every day. All you're doing is focusing on Naruto's negatives and that will lower our chance at completing this mission." I looked over to Naruto. "Naruto, you just have to learn from your mistakes."

Naruto looked away from my gaze. He went over and shoved Sai and started to walk off. "I………will never consider you a companion or a member of Team Kakashi."

Yamato shook his head. "This is really pointless isn't it?"

Sai smiled. "What would Sasuke have done it that situation? Fought while looking after you? As a companion and a member of Team Kakashi?" Naruto glanced at Sai.

"The one who betrayed the village and injured you….you still refer to him as friend?"

I looked at Naruto and back at Sai. What the hell is Sai's problem?! He's trying to get Naruto mad at him and its working! I hate fighting. I really do but Sai has no reason to go and say stuff like that to Naruto!

"If it's to save that friend I'll do anything." Said Naruto. "Even work with **you**." He walked off. I honestly couldn't blame Naruto if he went and attacked Sai right then and there. Perhaps he was more mature than me……..I'm worried.

Sai stared at Naruto's back calmly. "Why does he still care about Sasuke that much…."

I saw Sakura looked down sadly. "Naruto….thinks of Sasuke like a brother." She looked at Sai. "You have a brother too. Don't you understand that feeling?"

"Nope. Not at all…" Sai said calmly. He smiled and looked at me. "Remember about when we were talking about picture titles? I have none of what you call _emotions._ Speaking of which….have any new ideas to get a "real expression" out of me……..Akizakura?"

I think that might've been the first time he said my name. I don't know. I have bad memory. I closed my eyes and shrugged at him. "It kinda slipped my mind. I haven't really thought about it."

"What do you mean you have no emotions?" asked Sakura.

"Just what I said." Said Sai. He looked back at me. "If you're done I will be on my way."

Sakura looked at Naruto then back at Sai. "If you have a brother can't you imagine what it's like when he's not here?"

"Hm…yeah…sort of." Sai said smiling. "Since my brother's already dead."

"How'd he die?" I couldn't help but ask. I have a bad habit of butting in onto people's business.

"Why do you want to know?" Sai asked.

"Just curious."

Sai looked off still smiling that smile of his. "Then perhaps I used the wrong expression."

Sakura frowned. "Is there……anything you'd like to say?"

"Not really…I just didn't know what kind of expression to put on when my brother died."

"Enough talking." Said Yamato. "Go pack your stuff." Sai sighed but Sakura half blocked his path. "Sai….I would've sent you flying just there…I told you if you bad-mouthed Sasuke-kun one more time I wouldn't hold back but I didn't because of what Naruto said…that to save Sasuke-kun he'd even work with someone like you who bad-mouths him. No matter who you are….to save Sasuke-kun…I won't hurt you." And with that she walked off with Yamato.

Sai looked at me smiling again. "Anything you want to say?"

"You cared for him…"

Sai stared at me calmly but I sensed small confusion. "You're brother…I think you cared for him."

Sai smiled. "Cared? I read about that in a book once. I've read other books too but…I still can't understand emotions."

"Listen Sai…" I scratched my head thinking back to when I heard Sai talking to Mr. Mask. "I don't know much but this thing called "Roots" has to do with someone having no feelings right?" I swear the look Sai gave me right there had to be the closest to him being surprised. He still looked calm though.

I continued. "Whatever this "Roots" thing did to you to get rid of your emotions or whatever….I think when your brother died you were already free from any emotions right? But I think when someone dear to someone else dies they go into a state of….uncaring…"

Sai smiled except something about this one seemed different. I wasn't sure what. "You don't look like it but….you know more than you let on don't you?"

I frowned. "Maybe."

"Then I should be much more careful around you." Sai walked away.

-------------------

We finally arrived at our destination. Tenchi Bridge. Naruto, Sakura, Sai, and I were in our hiding places. The bridge was larger than I imagined it. I wasn't much of a traveler so I could only imagine what places were like whenever told about them. I never accepted missions when they involved me being far from Konoha. I was never much of a hard worker.

"There he is…" whispered Sakura. I looked ahead and saw that she was right. In the middle of the bridge stood a cloaked figure. The Akatsuki spy. I took a deep breath. Ready or not dangerous mission……..here we come.


	4. Mission

Yamato, who was now disguised as Sasori of the Akatsuki, walked over to the spy on Tenchi Bridge. "It's been a long time Sasori-sama." The spy said as he removed his hood. "It has been five years."

Naruto and Sakura's eyes widened. "Th-That's Kabuto!"

I remember seeing Kabuto at the Chuunin exams but I never actually spoke to him so I wasn't sure what to make of him.

Yamato/Sasori asked "Were you followed?"

"No, it is safe." Kabuto said.

"How are you?" Yamato/Sasori asked.

"When your jutsu was lifted, and I remembered who I was, I felt somewhat disoriented…I am still somewhat heavy minded…"

"I can't believe this." Said Sakura frowning. "Kabuto was the Akatsuki spy all along?"

You know that feeling you get in your stomach when you want to throw up but you can't? I kinda had that feeling in my stomach right now. I was nervous. Deadly nervous. I was glad that it was Yamato out there and not me. He'd be better at defending himself anyway.

I was tense and I felt that I was showing it too. I was thankful no one made fun of me. They were probably too focused on Kabuto anyway I realized.

"I have some questions for you." Said Yamato.

"Make it brief, it was a great risk to slip away." Kabuto commented.

Yamato slightly glanced to the side. "Tell me about….the location of your base and about Uchiha Sasuke."

Kabuto stared patiently at Yamato and said nothing. I was starting to think that Kabuto knew perfectly well that Yamato wasn't really Sasori. Once again I danced with joy at the fact that Yamato was out there and that I was perfectly hidden with spunky Sakura, hyperactive Naruto, and smartass Sai.

"We have many bases." Said Kabuto. "To keep from being discovered, we change bases on a weekly basis. There are, of course, bases in countries besides the sound. Orochimaru's spies enter those countries and guide us but we have various movement methods, which can sometimes be cumbersome…."

I wasn't surprised. Orochimaru was old and creepy but still smart enough to be more careful than careful to take chances of being caught.

"Our current base is hidden on a small island in a lake to the north. We will move from there in three days. _Uchiha Sasuke is also there_."

Can you say bingo? BINGO! We now had the news of where Sasuke is! Or at least me and Yamato did. Naruto and the others couldn't hear a word they said.

"The wind's really strong; I can't pick up anything their saying!" Naruto said frustrated.

Sakura looked at him and frowned. "Idiot! That's why we're able to go so close! Our sound and scent are carried away by the wind, so they don't know we're here."

Something caught Kabuto's attention and he swiftly whipped his head around and started at some bushes. A rabbit appeared before them and hopped away.

Kabuto calmed down. "…..just a wild rabbit."

If only it was just a rabbit.

Rabbits are cute and cuddly (unless they bite or scratch you) In fact if I knew what was gonna happen there on the bridge if I had a choice I would've happily chosen fighting a hundred rabbits or bunnies. But what happened next I wasn't prepared for.

If I had any idea then that a certain powerful shinobi, not to mention snakey, was snickering in his hiding spot over on the other side of the bridge I would have never accepted this mission. Ever.

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**Ha! There's part four!!! Reviews are appreciated.**


	5. Betrayal

_**Kay this chapter is kinda long. Sorry but I wanted it to end a certain way and I don't really like it when my chapters are short. And yes I realize I made some mistakes in my last chapters. Believe me when I feel like not being lazy I'll fix them.**_

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Kabuto frowned slightly at Yamato. "Now…..about that one task you asked of me Sasori-sama…"

"_Not good."_ Yamato thought. _"I still need to get a few more things out of him. But if I continued this conversation any longer I'll blow my cover…"_

"Even after his transmigration, Orochimaru cast a protective jutsu on the cellular specimen of the leftover corpse…" Kabuto said stepping closer to Yamato. "I was unable to perform a data analysis on that specimen."

"I see." Yamato commented.

Kabuto was quiet again. I wish I could read minds. Maybe then I'd be able to tell why Kabuto kept on bringing up silences. Maybe he didn't trust Yamato? Very possible.

Okay if things go from bad to worst…..run to the hills!! Oh. Wait. Scratch that. I'd have to run past Kabuto to get to the hills. Umm……hide behind Naruto and Sakura! I'm not sure Sai would be very willing to protect me.

"Just what is he waiting for?!" Naruto asked. That boy was impatient. If patience is a virtue he is obviously not in possession of such a thing. "Why doesn't he just go ahead with the capture already?"

Sakura glanced at Naruto looking very edgy. "This is Kabuto we're talking about here. If we were to let him get away, then things would obviously end there." She looked back at Yamato. "Taking things too carefully here is just what the captain needs to be doing."

Sai glanced at the three of us. "Still….if he takes things more carefully than he needs to and ends up arousing suspicion, then he'll lose his chance to capture the target."

"Whatever!" I finally said since we came to our hiding spots. "If this goes on much longer I'm going to die of boredom!" Quite the opposite actually. I was nervous as all hell. Okay I was scared. Not scared enough to piss my pants though. Okay never mind. I **never** wet my pants. Maybe when I was little but I'm sure I had very good reasons then.

"On that note please hand me the item I am here for. I can't continue to stay here much longer." Kabuto held out his hand. "If it's found out that I'm meeting with you like this…then I'll be killed."

"Very well." Yamato said. _"End of the line…it's either now or never!"_

With great skill Yamato whipped out a kunai knife. Kabuto quickly noticed this and froze upon the fact that one of the legendary shinobi, Orochimaru, had appeared right behind him. "My, my, what an interesting conversation. You wouldn't mind if I were to join in myself would you?" He said in a sinister voice.

It's official. Orochimaru freaks me out!!! His voice. His face. His…..everything. Someone stab him please. I was gonna die of…….freaking…..titus….or something…

"_He was followed!"_ Yamato realized. Kabuto quickly jumped away from Orochimaru and stood next to Yamato. Naruto glared. "Orochimaru!!"

"_So that's him…"_ Sai thought.

"If it weren't for you drawing your kunai…" Kabuto said. "I may have not been able to get away in time."

Yamato stayed where he was. _"I suppose I've at least escaped detection for now...still…now that Orochimaru's here what should I do?"_

"That getup of yours…it sure brings back memories Sasori." Orochimaru said smiling.

"So you followed Kabuto here then?" Yamato asked.

"What now….I was merely hoping to say a word or two of thanks." Orochimaru said. "That lovely boy there you bestowed me with…I was able to make quite good use of him. The development of but one new jutsu requires the bodies of well over a hundred live human test subjects…but thanks to that boy there, I was able to use the same test subjects over and over again."

Orochimaru's smirk widened. "It's quite hard to come across enough test subjects, after all…"

Naruto looked at me. "What do we do now?!"

"Why are you asking me? I have no idea!"

"All we can do is wait for the captain's signal." Said Sakura.

Yamato thought about the situation we were in. _"In all likelihood, me taking on Orochimaru by myself is out of the question…but if I call in the others Kabuto will know my identity and capturing will prove difficult."_

"_Even if I try to work with Kabuto and subdue Orochimaru…my fighting style will make it clear in an instant that I'm not Sasori."_ Yamato looked around but only with his eyes. _"Either way I'm left with the choice of defeating him or just retreating…but just one or the other."_

Kabuto raised his hands and I saw white chakra surround it. He attacked. But not Orochimaru. He attacked Yamato. Kabuto had cut what would be Sasori's head but Yamato quickly ditched his disguise and jumped back.

Orochimaru hand transformed into herds of snakes and attacked Yamato. The snakes quickly wrapped themselves around Yamato and one bit into him…only to reveal a dummy made of wood.

"What's going on?!" I asked out loud. "He couldn't have figured Yamato out…"

"Apparently Kabuto never really betrayed Orochimaru." Sai said not looking away from the bridge.

The snakes retracted back to Orochimaru. "Don't tell me your…"

"Orochimaru-sama, is that the real Sasori?" Kabuto asked.

"Oh no…not at all…" Replied Orochimaru. "Kabuto….are you telling me you worked for Sasori but were never shown his real face?"

"Well, he was a reclusive individual after all, always hiding in that puppet of his."

"What are you talking about?!" Yamato yelled. "Kabuto…you're supposed to be an Akatsuki spy…you should've been under the effect's of Sasori's jutsu all this time."

"Ah yes, that jutsu…" Kabuto smiled. "Orochimaru-sama did me the honor of dispelling it quite some time ago…"

"I wasn't expecting you to change sides, acting as though you were still under the effects of Sasori's jutsu…." Yamato remained calm. "I suppose this means it was Orochimaru's jutsu you fell prey to then…"

"No…not exactly…" Kabuto said still smiling. "All I fell prey to was Orochimaru-sama's magnificent way of thinking."

"Kiss ass." I muttered frowning. I usually don't like cussing but sometimes cussing is the only way you can perfectly describe things.

"I chose this path myself." Kabuto said. "…..but tell me who are you anyway? We came here with the intention of killing Sasori, so this is quite a mishap."

Orochimaru started walking closer. "Kabuto…I'll tell you about this little boy afterwards…but first things first. Bring out those three little mice hiding in the bush?"

So he knew we were here this whole time. Great. Just great. The four of us recognized Yamato's signal and we swiftly jumped out from our hiding place and landed in front of Yamato.

On the outside I looked prepared to take on any fight with anyone like everybody else. But of course inside I was, like I said, freaking out.

"Well…" Kabuto smiled again. "It's you again."

"I guess this means the Kyuubi's here to fight as well." Said Orochimaru. "I'll give you the pleasure of assessing which has gotten stronger…you or Sasuke-kun."

Naruto glared at him. In fact his eyes were starting to turn red and he started to grow fangs. It was right then and there that I'm glad I never try to piss Naruto off.

"_**Give……Sasuke back."**_ Naruto growled. Everything about him was changing. I was wondering if I should be scared of Naruto as well. What was going on with him? Damn that Orochimaru. Using Sasuke's name to taunt Naruto.

"There is no giving back Naruto." said Kabuto obviously not affected by a red chakra that was surrounding Naruto. "Here, let me explain it for you….Sasuke-kun came to us of his own free will. It's about time you got over it. Going on like that is hardly becoming of a man…."

Sakura glared at him. "Shut your mouth four-eyes!! You don't know damned thing about Naruto's feelings!! I've had enough of your 'cool' attitude!!!"

"If you want to learn more about Sasuke-kun….why don't you try forcing it out of me?" Orochimaru suggested. "If you can that is…."

It took a moment for me to comprehend what had happened. Naruto had so quickly attacked Orochimaru with so much power…I have no idea how it's possible. One thing I did notice was that the red chakra surrounding Naruto's body was in the form of an animal.

Naruto's chakra clawed at Orochimaru's face and sent him flying off the bridge into the trees.

Flying debris was everywhere. I hope I didn't get a splinter. But non-serious aside I realized the red chakra that was surrounding Naruto was kinda….bubbling? Chakra bubbling?

Sai and Sakura stared at the scene before them. Apparently they were surprised as I was on seeing this side of Naruto.

Kabuto smiled at Naruto. "Naruto-kun…I see you developed nicely as a Jinchuuriki."

A Jinchu-what? I hoped I survive this cause I have questions I wanted to ask. I saw Orochimaru walking towards the bridge again….shouldn't he not be moving after getting hit like that?

Orochimaru looked at Yamato. "It would appear my experiments were of some use after all…I should think Konoha would be a bit more appreciative…wouldn't you agree, my dear guinea pig?"

Guinea pig? Yamato? Confused. Orochimaru should talk more so I won't be confused.

"Well, you see..."

Yay. Me learn.

"The first was a shinobi possessing skills that made bijuu bend to his will…." Orochimaru covered his face with one of his hands. "Oh how I coveted that skill of his…heh heh. I carried out an experiment in which his genetic traits were spliced into 60 different children, my test subjects…they died by the dozens….to think there was one lone survivor."

Okay that made sense. Yamato was chosen as the sensei because of his skills with bijuu. So…….a bijuu was inside Naruto?

"I would still like to see who has gotten stronger." Said Orochimaru. "Our Sasuke-kun or the Kyuubi boy."

"_**He isn't yours…."**_ Growled Naruto dangerously. The red chakra tails whipped around behind him. Naruto's head shot up. _**"In my presence, don't you dare talk of Sasuke as though he belongs to you!!"**_

The wind pressure around the area grew and the air even began to hurt. I wondered if Naruto realized what he was doing. I especially got worried when the red chakra grew so much when it showed the animal that was inside Naruto.

The huge nine tailed fox. It wasn't really there I think. Just it's energy. I looked away. I couldn't help it. I don't know why I couldn't just watch what was happening. After all the red chakra fox was glaring at Orochimaru, not me.

This wasn't what I signed up for. That kind of chakra can't be controlled.

Kabuto's chakra formed around his hand again and he attacked Naruto. Naruto noticed him and roared at him causing a huge burst of energy that knocked Kabuto away. So strong that it even knocked ourselves back

I fell hard on the bridge and hit my head. I prayed I wouldn't get a concussion or something stupid. My hands held onto my head in hopes that the pain would go away. I looked for Sakura to see if she was fine. She was knocked out cold but what really worried me was that the bridge was shattered by the chakra.

Fine time to be asleep Sakura!!!

Luckily Yamato clasped his hands together and was able to summon pillars to keep the end of the bridge from crumbling down like the most of it. But I still wasn't close enough to not be slipping so I grabbed onto part of the railing of the bridge with one arm hoping that it wouldn't break off.

I looked over to Sakura again and she was slipping. "Sakura!" I called but she wouldn't wake. Sai was still standing and grabbed one of his scrolls and unrolled it. He pulled out his brush and painted on it. An ink bird quickly emerged from the scroll and Sai jumped on it and the bird flew below.

"Sai! Help Sakura!" Yamato called as Sakura fell off.

Sai's bird was right below her but he flew up right past her and let her fall. One thing I did understand there.

Sai had betrayed us.


	6. Sai's Choice

_**Yay! Reviews make me happy.**_

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Sai had betrayed us.

I knew he had social issues but I did too. Why had he betrayed us? At that moment I made it my business to find out.

"Oh please…." Yamato did another jutsu and made a vine to capture a falling Sakura. He sighed.

I watched Sai fly off on his ink creature. He seemed so calm. So uncaring. I had to track him down somehow. Ignoring the throbbing pain in my head and Naruto's fight with Orochimaru still going on in the forest I wobbled onto my feet.

How the hell was I going after him? I knew no special jutsus. I had no magical bloodline. The bridge was broken and I think the back of my head was bleeding.

Yamato pulled Sakura onto the bridge. "Pull yourself together Sakura!"

Sakura opened her eyes. "Huh…."

"Are you alright?" Yamato asked.

"I'm fine." Sakura studied the scene around her. Yamato did a hand sign and made a wooden clone. The clone jumped off the edge of the broken bridge and made another sign. A long wooden path stretched out and the clone rode it to the other side.

Bingo. Ignoring Sakura's and Yamato's yelling I leapt onto the bridge and darted across to the other side after the clone. Like I predicted the clone attempted to block me but I had already made a clone of myself and tackled his clone giving me enough time to escape…I think. I didn't bother to look back.

Running was one thing that I was good at as a shinobi. I heard an explosion very close to me so I ducked for cover quickly. When it was safe to look I saw Sai falling. The explosion must've caused his ink creature to disperse or something.

I quickly ran towards Sai. I realized that he landed on a tree branch and had yet to notice me. I quickly hid realizing that I wasn't sure how I was gonna talk to him.

Should I really be mad that Sai betrayed us? I didn't know him that well. Maybe I just didn't like when people betray others? Trust is a sacred vow that should never be broken. I read that in a fortune cookie. I believe in the cookie.

My thoughts were interrupted when the force of a shockwave came over me knocking me over. Note to self. Have firmer footing.

I looked at Sai and realized that he wasn't moving any closer. I realized he_ can't_ get any closer. It's too dangerous.

I sneaked away from him and looked over to where Naruto was. I couldn't see him that well but by the looks of it Naruto now had four tails instead of three and he was surrounded by a darker chakra. I decided that as long as Naruto had that powerful chakra he wouldn't need my help fighting Orochimaru.

A loud clear roaring sound was heard. I squinted my eyes to see Naruto and it looked like he was gathering energy and getting ready to charge it.

I crept a little closer and saw a black sphere Naruto had created with the energy he had collected. I sent chakra to my ears to listen.

"Oh dear, this is trouble _indeed_."

That was Orochimaru's voice. If Naruto's power was strong enough to get Orochimaru step back I wondered if I should step in.

I doubt I could even if I wanted to. The bursts of chakra that Naruto kept sending out continued knocking me back. I saw Orochimaru jump far away from Naruto. I decided I'd duck for more cover.

Naruto's chakra sphere that he made compressed and he quickly put it in his mouth. The ground started rumbling around him. I jumped when I heard someone moving closer to me. I moved more away from the sound and then looked over to where it came from.

It was Sai! He was still too occupied with Naruto to even notice me. Maybe if I planned to attack him now would be a good time? I looked over at Naruto again and realized that his body was expanding. Did he swallow the sphere?

Naruto finally shot a powerful, blinding blast at Orochimaru. Orochimaru smirked and bit his thumbs drawing blood.

I jumped into a ditch nearby just in case some trees or something else got knocked over my way. By the sounds of things I'm guessing Orochimaru summoned something pretty huge that burst out of the ground.

A huge gust of wind blew my hair in my face. Even this ditch was having trouble being my shelter. Oh well...as long as I don't get killed.

After I guessed it was safe to come out someone tackled me to the ground from behind and brought a kunai to my neck.

"Having fun?"

I turned my head slightly and saw Sai smiling that fake smile of his. For some reason I found I couldn't be scared of him. Either because I believed he wouldn't really kill me or I just wasn't afraid of death…………..or I was insane.

"Kinda." I replied. "At home I usually never get this much excitement."

Sai said nothing as I rested my head on the ground. He didn't remove his kunai from my neck so I looked at him again and asked if he could.

"You realize that if this was a normal shinobi mission I would have killed you now."

"This isn't normal?" I asked.

"A mission involving Orochimaru isn't normal. You should learn to be prepared for anything." Sai said.

"This is kinda good for me though because I'm still alive." Sai inched the knife closer to my neck. "You're going to kill me?" I asked.

"Can you give me a reason why I shouldn't?"

"Because I'm adorable." I replied. I had no idea if this was going to work. Just in case it wouldn't I opened my mouth again. "And I have a whole bunch of new ideas to get real emotions out of you. It will be kinda hard to help you if I'm dead."

Sai paused. Was he not gonna kill me? Maybe if I was nice to him he'd apologize for not helping Sakura and come back with me to Yamato and Sakura. Chances at that were low but a girl can dream.

"Why are you so intent on getting emotions out of me?" Sai asked showing no emotion.

"Because I know you can. You just need a kick in the ass or something."

"Is that all?"

"You'll find out if you get off of me." Sai didn't move. "Please?" I asked.

"Does it matter that much to get an emotion out of me?" Sai asked calmly.

What kind of question was that? I still didn't really know exactly how Sai's mind worked so I'd say just about anything to keep my neck from getting sliced.

"Yeah!" I said. "Can't you imagine all the fun we can have? Everyday just trying to get you to make a real face? C'mon! Doesn't that sound fun?!"

Actually if I was Sai and I knew me well I'd probably say a big no. I honestly don't know how people could deal with me. I always considered myself pretty annoying when I wanted to be….which was more often than it should.

When I was gonna ask Sai what was keeping him he whacked my head which sent me into unconsciousness.

-------------------Later--------------------------

I heard people talking. Listening longer I discovered they were the voices of Naruto, Sakura, and Yamato. I opened my eyes halfway and sat up. My movement caught Naruto's eyes and he gaped at me.

He jumped next to me. "Akizakura! Wow! You're awake?!!"

"Nope. In fact this is all a dream. The part where the ponies come and play is gonna happen soon."

Naruto frowned at me as Sakura came over next to me. "We found you just outside the battle zone." She said as she handed me a small picture book.

"Hey…" I took it and recognized the drawing of a boy on the front and back. "Isn't this Sai's?" Sakura nodded.

"Sakura! How could you!? Stealing is bad!!"

Although she knew I was joking she decided to slap me upside the head anyway. "This is not the time." She said frowning. "Sai went with Orochimaru and we found that lying around."

"Ah I see…" I stared at the cover of the book. "Did you look through this?"

Sakura nodded. "I also healed the bump you got on your head so it stopped bleeding." I felt that back of my head and part of my hair was wet from the blood. "Thankies." I said.

Yamato came over and stood over me. He didn't have his scary look of doom on but he was mad. I wish I was freakishly tall so I could be intimidating too.

"You disobeyed a direct order." He said.

"I did?" 

"We yelled you to stay where you were." Sakura said. "But instead you took off and ignored us completely. We found you knocked out just a couple feet away."

"Oh yeah! That was Sai."

"That darn Sai!" Naruto hollered. "When I find him I'll beat him so hard he-"

"Why wouldn't Sai just kill you?" Yamato asked. "Since he betrayed us it would mean none of us have any more use."

"Because I'm adorable." I really had no idea why he didn't kill me. But saying I'm adorable was fun cause I could see the reactions like the one Yamato just gave me right there.

"This is serious." Yamato said.

"I know and that's why I'm trying to lighten things up." I said simply. With the scary look Yamato shot me I quickly said I'm ready to go after Orochimaru and be 'serious'.

I looked at Sai's picture book again. The more I looked at it the more I realized that the boy on the front looks like Sai. Sakura came and sat next to me. "You should look what' inside."

I raised an eyebrow at her but opened it nonetheless. The first page showed the boy from the cover fighting an opponent that to me looked similar to some of the demons you see in ink paintings.

"From what I can tell…." I said flipping through the pages. "It's about the boys that are on the cover and the back." I stopped in the center of the book. It seemed to show another picture of the dark haired boy from the cover except he had no face. "No words are spoken in this story."

"Right." Sakura nodded. "It works out so that the story of each of the boys starts with their respective cover and works it way towards the center."

I flipped to the first page. The dark haired boy had no weapons and on the next page he had the weapons of the person or whatever he fought. "So…..this boy defeated his opponent and took his weapons?"

"And their armor." Said Sakura. "The white haired boy has the same kind of story. They basically go around defeating her enemies and take their weapons and armor."

"I know I've only seen his art a couple times but I think I like his style." I admitted. Sakura looked at me and raised an eyebrow. "What?" I asked.

"Nothing." She said. "I'm sure you can guess who Sai is."

"The dark haired boy from the cover." I said quickly. "But then who's the light haired boy from the back?"

"We're guessing that boy is his brother he was talking about."

"_**It's incomplete and it's my brothers."**_

"_**My brother's already dead after all."**_

"That would make sense." I said.

"_**Not one of my pictures have titles."**_

"_**Why not?"**_

"_**There's nothing to name them."**_

"My clone has found Orochimaru's hideout." Called Yamato.

"Yeah! Let's go!" called Naruto.

I quickly stuffed Sai's book in my back and the four of us headed after Orochimaru.

We soon arrived to very dry land. All the trees had not one leaf on them and there were boulders and other large rocks lying around. We met up with Yamato's clone and hid behind one of the very big rocks.

"Here, huh?" Yamato asked his clone.

"The entrance is right below that rock formation in front of us." His clone answered.

Naruto looked over at the clump of rocks. "Under those rocks…Sasuke is waiting."

"Yeah." Sakura said.

I frowned. They were both so tense. Could this Sasuke really be that important? I guess I was about to find out.

Naruto closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "Okay…let's go then." Yamato put his hand in front of Naruto. "Hold on a second." Yamato placed his hand on his clone and his clone changed form to something that looked similar to a pill in Yamato's hand.

"You can go after you swallow this." Naruto stared at it.

Yamato held out a hand to me and Sakura that had two of the pill looking things on it. "Here, you two take them as well."

I picked one up and stared at it then at Yamato. "You're giving us pills?"

Yamato sighed. "These are for in case we get separated. With those inside you I'll be able to locate you immediately. To put it simply, those seeds are tracking devices."

I smiled. "Oh! So there not pills! That's good!"

Yamato shot me a look that went something along the lines of interrupt again and you'll regret it so I decided to shut up for now. "They're a tool of mine that only respond to my chakra."

"Those are just the same as the ones that I planted in Sai's clothes and food."

Naruto looked at Yamato and frowned. "But when did you…."

"Don't you remember? At the hot springs I left before you and Sai…"

Naruto nodded.

Yamato closed his eyes and smiled. "Now you should understand why I went out of my way, using my own money, to treat everyone to such a lavish stay at the hot springs resort. Everything was just like Tsunade-sama said. Taking precautions with Sai sure has paid off in the end….anyhow enough talk. Swallow them."

I threw the pill…er…seed thing in my mouth. It was hard so I didn't bother to chew it since it was so small.

"Ok then!" said Yamato facing forward with the three of us behind him. "Everyone, it's time."

Naruto smiled. "Yeah!"

"Ready!" called Sakura.

"Meh…" I mumbled not too excited about entering Orochimaru's hideout.

----------------------------------------------

_**Sorry, this one took longer to get out than expected. Thanks for reading!!!**_


	7. Infiltration

_**Number 7!! Pretty soon I'll be in two digits: )**_

-----------------------------------------

"What's are method of infiltration?" asked Sakura as she put on her gloves.

"We're taking this by the book." Said Yamato. "We'll use a Do-Ton (earth element ninja technique) technique to approach from underground."

The three of us nodded at Yamato and followed him to the formation of rocks. There was a small tunnel but of course it was blocked off by more rock.

"That's nothing." Said Naruto smirking. "I'll break it with my Rasengan!"

"Hold on!" called Sakura. "If you use a showy jutsu like that, they'll figure out we're here in no time!"

"Infiltration always requires silence." Yamato said while placing his hand on a small crack. "If you apply just a little force to a certain small crack with a rock of this type…" The crack grew and soon shattered making a hole that all of us could crawl through.

"See?" said Yamato.

"So now we look for Sai?" I asked. Yamato nodded and pointed down a hallway. "He's down there." We all took off in a quiet run down the hallway. Only after a couple minutes when Yamato announced we were almost there we arrived to a door. He undid the lock and opened it slightly. "Well look who we have here."

All of us walked in and I'm not sure about the rest of them but I think Sai actually looked surprise. He 'smiled' again. "The hokage controlled anbu, impressive as always."

"Why don't you tell us what's going on here." Yamato asked. Before Sai could answer Naruto walked up to him and grabbed his shirt. "YOU!? WHY DID YOU BETRAY US?!!"

"You shouldn't make so much noise in here. It'll cause trouble." Sai said calmly.

Naruto glared at him. "Why you…"

"Naruto calm down." I said.

Naruto glared at Sai a minute longer before releasing his shirt and walking away from him. "Oh! I just remembered!" I called. I reached into my bag and took out Sai's picture book and handed it to him. "We found this."

He took it. "Thank you." Sai said calmly.

"You work for a guy named Danzou right?" Sakura asked. "That's why you're here. He wants help from Orochimaru."

Sakura continued. "He's plotting the destruction of Konoha."

Sai said nothing for a few moments. "No….actually…."

"WE ALL ALREADY KNOW YOUR SMILES ARE FAKE. AND THE SAME GOES FOR THE LIES YOU FORCE THOUGH THEM!" Naruto hollered at him.

Sai closed his eyes and smiled. He became silent again before saying he failed his mission. "The minute you all found me it was over and I can't take on the four of you by myself. And since you know there's no point in hiding it. We are going to destroy Konoha as it exists today."

Yamato pointed a kunai at him. "Atta' boy. Now tell us everything you know."

"That's not all." Said Sai. "I was also supposed to send info on Orochimaru to Danzou-sama." I cocked my head to the side. "So you were just gonna try to team up with Orochimaru just to betray him in the end?"

"Orochimaru would betray us in the end anyway." Sai said. "I was chose for this mission because of my special abilities. I write information in ink and they transform into animals that will protect themselves from harm."

"We get that Danzou wants Konoha as his own obviously…" Sakura frowned. "Don't you get what you're doing?! Countless people can die!"

"I don't care." Sai simply answered. "I just follow orders."

"Sai you're…" 

"Sai's not even my real name. It was assigned to me merely for the purpose of this mission. In reality I'm a nobody. What you say to me means nothing."

"Then why do you always carry that book." I asked. It should be obvious that none of that makes sense since it seems Sai always carries that book around with him. Sai looked at me then back at his book.

"The children on the back and cover…." Sakura looked at the book. "That's you and your brother right? You carry that because it proves you exist. Despite what you say you never got rid of all your emotions. Even for us shinobi, abandoning our emotions completely is impossible." Stated Sakura.

"Why would this book be important to me?" asked Sai.

"Because it proves your existence as a brother and you have brotherly bonds."

Sai's eyes widened slightly. "Bonds…."

"Sorry to say but we took a peek inside that book of yours." Said Yamato. "Judging from your book you'd end up fighting your brother in the middle."

"Sai." Yamato frowned. "I know your part of roots and that Danzou has given you special training to relieve you of your emotions. Training that was identical to training in the village hidden in the mist."

The mist? I've heard so many stories about why it's called bloody mist village. Made me really sad. I think I was starting to feel sympathetic to Sai right then.

"Sai, your brother was killed by none other than…"

"You're wrong!!" interrupted Sai.

I gaped at him. He yelled. Sai actually yelled. "I intended to give this as a present to my brother but just when I was about to complete it…." Sai looked up and 'smiled'. "He died of an illness. We weren't even related by blood but he complimented me on my drawings often. "'Roots' was filled with children who lost their parents due to battle. I became close to one, called him my brother."

Sai looked at his picture book. "After my brother died…I can't remember what I wanted to draw in the center."

We brought Sai outside of Orochimaru's hideout quickly. Yamato tied Sai up. We were all back outside hiding behind a large rock.

"Unfortunately Sai…" said Yamato. "We're going to leave you here."

"Time to rescue Sasuke!" said Naruto.

"It's best if you give up on that." Sai said in his usual tone. "I met with him you see and Orochimaru is going to be with Sasuke for awhile. If you go after him you'll just die. Besides…."

Sai looked directly at Naruto. "Sasuke says he doesn't care about any of you anymore. Do you really intend got go up against Orochimaru, of all people, just for him….why? It's not like you've been ordered to do this."

Naruto smiled at him. "Way back, I used to hate Sasuke…but once I got used to being around him I realized he's a lot of fun…to be around." Naruto gave Sai a sad smile. "He's the person that, more than anyone else, accepted me and my existence."

Sai stared at him.

"Sasuke is my friend. And he represents bonds that I waited so long to receive, so that's why……."

Sai looked down. "That's not good enough…if you want to face Orochimaru."

Naruto continued smiling. "If my arms get ripped off, I'll just kick him to death. If my legs get ripped off, I'll just bite him to death. If my head gets ripped off I'll just stare at him to death. And if my eyes get ripped out, I'll just curse him to death."

I looked at him sadly. "Naruto…"

"Even if it means getting torn to pieces…" Naruto looked over at Orochimaru's hideout, eyes narrowing. "I'm going to take Sasuke back from Orochimaru no matter what!"

Dang this mission was lasting way to long for my tastes. I always preferred short missions. That was the way with everything.

Everybody would always be working hard to complete long missions but not me. I'd be back at home wrapped in a warm blanket eating food that some friend bought for me and I wouldn't share. In fact, I'd eat it in front of them.

"Akizakura."

I snapped out of my daydreaming. "Yes?"

"You stay here and watch Sai." Said Yamato.

"Me?"

"Yes. If something happens just summon chakra."

Why was I being chose for this!!? I guess I shouldn't complain (I know better to complain towards a guy like Yamato anyway) since I won't have to fight anybody scary. I shook my head ok. Yamato and the others started to walk away.

It actually wasn't that bad just sitting in the shade next to Sai. He wouldn't say anything but just stay quiet. The calm and serene folk would enjoy themselves if they got to do this in a mission.

Unfortunately I'm not that kind of person. "Hey Sai?"

"What?"

"Your hair is really shiny."

"Excuse me?"

"It's really shiny as in like really clean you know? It's pretty." Sai said nothing and looked back down. I patted his head. "It's soft too." I ruffled his hair a bit and it looked like each strand fell back into its place. "You know for a guy with no emotions it sure seems like you care for your hair. What kinda shampoo do you use?"

Sai was still silent. He wouldn't even look at me. I waved my hand in front of his face. "You had better not fallen asleep…."

"You know…"

I jumped.

"You shouldn't talk with the prisoner."

Did he not like my company? "Yeah, and you shouldn't brush your teeth while eating chocolate but I do it anyway." Sai said nothing so I continued. "Not only does it not get your teeth clean but it has a bad taste too. I mean, can you even imagine that? Brushin' a couple times then taking a bite out of chocolate? Ewww…"

Sai looked up at me ready to say something but stopped. I sensed it too. Someone was here. Not even looking up to see who was attacking from the sky I jumped out of the way only to nearly be missed by getting hit by Kabuto.

He must've realized Sai went missing. Kabuto landed in front of Sai. "Judging by your situation…" Kabuto looked at me. "I suppose this means you were captured."

I whipped out a kunai knife. Great! Just great! Here I thought I wasn't gonna have to do anything hard on this mission and Orochimaru's right hand man just _has _to show up!!

Kabuto moved next to Sai. "Since it seems like you haven't betrayed us…I'll help you for now." Kabuto cut the ropes which held Sai.

"_**If something happens just summon chakra."**_

That's what Yamato said. I just hoped he and the others weren't so far away to not hear me as I focused on my chakra.

Kabuto lunged at me and I held up my kunai in defense. The blue chakra from his hand knocked my kunai out of my hand. Dang. I need to work on my grip. Kabuto came in for the kill.

Well…this isn't good.


	8. Reunion

**Last time**

Kabuto lunged at me to stop my yelling and I held up my kunai in defense. The blue chakra from his hand knocked my kunai out of my hand. Dang. I need to work on my grip. Kabuto came in for the deadly blow.

Well…this isn't good

-------------------------------

Just as it seemed Kabuto was going to cause me a lot of pain a certain blonde ninja jumped between us and kicked Kabuto in the forehead knocking him back.

I smiled. "Naruto!" Yay! I probably get to live for another year or so. I noticed Yamato and Sakura appearing only a couple feet away.

Naruto smirked at me then glared at Sai and Kabuto. "If you two get in my way I'm not going to hold back!" I quickly noticed two Naruto clones standing above Sai and Kabuto on the large rock, rasengan ready. One clone dashed forward but Kabuto calmly kicked the Naruto clone making it 'puff' away. "So pointless…"

"Fights aren't decided until the very end!" hollered Naruto. "This is just getting started!!"

"No, no…that's not what I'm talking about." Kabuto smirked. "Watching you Naruto, makes me truly feel pity. People change…Sasuke is no longer the Sasuke you knew."

Sai came at Kabuto from behind and held him. "What the?!!"

So….I'm guessing Sai is on our side again. Kabuto turned his head to try to face Sai. "What are you doing?"

"You say people change…and here I am." Sai said calmly.

"What!?"

"…but there are also things that don't change." Sai said. "Bonds. I want to see what they're really made of."

"Sai! Just keep him like that!" yelled Yamato.

After a little while Yamato tied Kabuto up with some type of earth jutsu. I don't remember what it's called. That's probably one of the reasons why I'm a bad ninja. Yamato made a clone of himself to watch Kabuto.

I glanced at Sai. "Hey Sai?" He looked at me. "Why did you…"

"Why is it that Naruto and Sasuke have such bonds? What exactly are the bonds they speak of? I decided I wanted the answer to that question. According to you and Sakura I can't get rid of these bonds between my brother and me." Sai did his smile. "…….if those bonds are so important to me, and then I might be able to see the 'bonds' between Naruto and Sasuke….that's all."

I smiled at him. "You do that."

Naruto looked over at Sai and smiled.

"The four of you don't know the real Sasuke…" Kabuto started chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Sakura glared at Kabuto.

"Tell us where Sasuke is." Yamato ordered firmly.

Kabuto smiled while narrowing his eyes. "He should be done with his training by now. There are many rooms throughout the lair. If you end up looking in each as you go, you might find him. Still if you aren't careful you might find a snake as well. Orochimaru-sama keeps his quarters in the same area after all…."

"Thank you for being honest." Yamato said.

"Oh no you really shouldn't be thanking me." Said Kabuto.

"You expect us, the hunters, to become the prey then?" asked Yamato.

Oh, I did not like the sound of that. I would absolutely _not_ go down!

Kabuto smirked. "Precisely."

Oh crap. We're going down.

"Now, now." Said Yamato. "Just like Naruto said, fights aren't decided until the very end."

------Back in the Lair------------

"We'll split in groups to search for Sasuke." Said Yamato. "Sakura and I on one, Naruto, Sai, and Akizakura on the other. If something comes up focus your chakra and I'll find you."

---------After lotsa boring searching----

"We finished this floor." Said Sai.

"So we'll head up?" I asked. He nodded. Naruto tripped in front of us.

I really thought Sai was gonna make fun of him and I'd be stuck in the middle of it. I wonder if anybody would notice that I'd "accidentally" get lost…

"Naruto…" started Sai. "We've already split into teams to do the search. We can rest so there is no need to hurry."

Yay! No fight.

Naruto struggled to get up. "Like I care! I can't rest at a time like this Sasuke is just a little bit…."

I realized that Naruto must still be weak from using all that dangerous chakra from earlier when he fought Orochimaru. How else could he be so weak? Naruto fell again. Sai walked over and helped Naruto lean against the wall. Sai sat next to him.

Since I was tired myself and pretty sure I may have lost a couple pounds from running around a lot I plopped next to Sai. "This is taking too long." I whined.

"You shouldn't complain on missions." Said Sai looking at me.

I frowned at him. "But by the time the missions over I won't feel like complaining anymore. This is the best time to do it!"

"I'm not sure why but something tells me you daydream a lot."

"Yeah! Now that you mention it, I want a pony!"

Sai looked at Naruto than me. "You're both like him."

"Huh?"

"You and Naruto are kinda similar to my brother." Sai reached into his bag and pulled out the picture book." I think he kinda did a real gently smile right then and there. "He was loud, impatient, refined, and his peni…"

I frowned. "I don't have a penis." I interrupted him.

Sai shook his head. "I'm just saying that watching you two brings back memories of…." Sai's stopped. His eyes immediately widened, he swiftly reached into his bag and brought out a pencil. He flipped open the book and started drawing in it.

I cocked my head to the side. "Did you….."

"I just remembered….." Sai scribbled in the book and started on the next page. "I remembered what I was trying to…"

"Lemme see! Lemme see!" I called. At the moment for some reason I wanted nothing more than to see what Sai was drawing. Naruto and I quickly looked over Sai's shoulder.

In the now finished picture it showed Sai and his brother holding hands. And smiling. I found myself moved. It was such a simple picture but seeing the two boys with all their weapons and armor together like that………...not really sure why but I tend to get really emotional over simple things. Then Sai smiled.

Sai smiled for real. From the heart but it looked like he was getting ready to cry. "I wanted to show my brother this…this picture of our dream…"

Naruto smiled at him. I was gonna hug that, who I found now adorable, little orphan, Sai.

I never got a chance.

Footsteps of Orochimaru came our way.

"Well then…Sai…" Orochimaru smiled. "Which side do you intend to take?"

The three of us jumped to our feet and no sooner did we that Orochimaru sent two large snakes at us from his sleeve. The three of us jumped back.

"So…you're on their side after all…Sai…why you…"

Naruto stepped in front of us. "I'll deal with him. Sai, you and Akizakura go and find Sasuke!"

We stood there. "Hurry!" called Naruto.

"Alright." Sai said and he looked at me. "We'll go and rescue Sasuke."

Sai grabbed my arm since I was slow in moving because I was thinking about Naruto. Even with all that dangerous chakra before Naruto failed to kill Orochimaru. I prayed that leaving him he wouldn't die.

"Don't die Naruto!" I called as I ran along Sai.

Orochimaru looked at Naruto. "You've come to rescue Sasuke have you? I'll hand it to you for guts, but do you really think things will go as you want?"

"YEAH!" Naruto did a hand sign. "I'll beat you…and take Sasuke out of here!"

Me and Sai came to a corner he held a hand out in front of me to stop me. "What?" I asked raising an eyebrow at him.

"Hold on for a moment." Sai lay down a blank scroll and started painting rats….or mice? I'm pretty sure it was one of the two.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"You'll see."

Hmpf! I hate it when people say that to me. When I ask now that means I wanna know now dammit!

Sai did a hand sign.

**Ninja Art- Super Beast Imitation Drawing**

All the mice jumped out of the scroll and took down all three hallways.

"A distraction?" I asked.

"There looking around." Sai smiled and did another hand sign while closing his eyes.

I thought for a moment. I really wanted us to move just in case someone found us but I didn't wanna break Sai of his concentration. What if Orochimaru decided that he wanted to kill Sai because he betrayed him?

I really didn't want Sai to die I realized. If Orochimaru wanted to kill Sai he'd have to get past the kunoichi who just now decided that no matter what her strengths are she's going to protect Sai.

Sai opened his eyes. "This way." He said. He led me to a door and he carefully opened it. There on the bed in the room lay a figure. I immediately recognized the Uchiha clan symbol on the back of the person's shirt.

Three of Sai's ink snakes slithered inside and up to Sasuke. What was he doing? I didn't dare ask for fear that Sasuke would wake up.

"Who's there?"

Oh shit.

"Busted already? But I already got the upper hand." Said Sai calmly. I'm really glad he was calm. If he wasn't I'd probably start screaming cause I'm such a wimp.

Sasuke spoke quietly but firmly. "What do you want?"

"I want…to take you back to Konoha."

Sasuke was silent.

Sai smiled. "I was going to kill you at first but…."

"**He's the only person to ever really notice me."**

"**Sasuke is like a brother to Naruto."**

Sai frowned and narrowed his eyes. "I want to try protecting the 'bond' between you….that Naruto is trying so hard to mend."

I looked at Sai sadly. "Sai…"

"Bonds…?" Sasuke spoke quietly but I sensed that he was a tad pissed. "You woke me up….to talk about bonds?"

Now I was starting to remember why Sasuke bugged me.

-------------------

"_Wow! Sasuke, you're so cool!" Sakura said with hearts in her eyes._

_The sand ninja called Kankurou frowned at Sasuke who was smirking from a tree branch._

_I shook my head and sighed. The fact that Sakura is encouraging him and that Kankurou has a stupid expression on his face is just adding to Sasuke's ego._

_So the guy stopped Kankurou with a freakin' pebble!!! Big deal!_

_Sasuke smirked._

---------------------

Sai jumped on me shoving me to the ground which knocked me out of my flashback.

……………..

What the hell?! If Sai felt like flirting shamelessly couldn't he have chosen a better time to-?

A large blast erupted. Oh. Glad I didn't yell at him out loud….that would've been embarrassing.

"Sai?" I asked. He protected me from the blast he saw coming. If only I wasn't busy thinking of that annoying flashback Sai might've not had to protect me like that. "Sai, are you okay?!" I didn't even see what Sasuke did.

"Guh…." Replied Sai weakly.

Not a good sign.

Sai stood to his feet. "You certainly live up to your reputation…."

Sai's standing and talking. That's a good sign.

"I mean to overpower my jutsu is quite something…." Sai looked up at Sasuke.

I jumped to my feet next to Sai. Okay. By the looks of things we're going to have to beat Sasuke to a pulp and drag him back with us. But for a guy who has been training under Orochimaru for about three years did we stand a chance at all?

I saw Sakura run out of one of the tunnels of the lair. She lunged at Sai and grabbed his neck. "You! What the hell are you after!?"

"Sakura, stop!" I yelled.

"Ah, it's Sakura…" said Sasuke.

Sakura's eyes widened and slowly looked up at her old teammate. She released Sai and……….stared!?

I swear that girl chooses the worst time to act like a ditz. I know I shouldn't be talking but…still.

"Sasuke………kun……."

Naruto dashed out after Sakura upon hearing Sasuke's name. Upon seeing Sasuke he froze.

Okay. People need to stop staring. Now.


	9. Sasuke

**Last Time**

Sakura's eyes widened and slowly looked up at her old teammate. She released Sai and……….stared!?

I swear that girl chooses the worst time to act like a ditz. I know I shouldn't be talking but…still.

"Sasuke………kun……." She whispered.

Naruto dashed out after Sakura upon hearing Sasuke's name. Upon seeing Sasuke he also froze.

Okay. People need to stop staring. Now.

-----------------------------------

I decided its okay for Naruto and Sakura to be surprised. After a couple of years of missing their old teammate I could understand if they wanted to just stand there and gawk. But if the certain teammate is still evil and still works for a creepy and powerful snake dude it's another matter.

"And now Naruto's here too…." Sasuke said quietly. "Does that mean Kakashi is here as well?"

Yamato walked out of the tunnel and faced Sasuke. "Unfortunately Kakashi-san couldn't be here. I'm here in his place. We, Team Kakashi, will be taking you back to Konoha."

Sasuke studied all five of us. "Team Kakashi huh?"

Sai took out his small sword which hung from his back. Sakura looked at him and glared. "SAI! I knew it!"

I raised my right eyebrow at her. I chose my right because most people I know can only raise their left.

Sai is just getting ready for battle that probably can't be avoided. Couldn't Sakura realize that?

Sasuke looked down at Sai. "So he's filling in for me then, is he…? One more pansy for the group, quite the fit I'm sure."

I frowned at Sasuke. "Oh, and I suppose your all grown up now?"

Sasuke faced me. He's actually seems a lot scarier when his attention is only focused on you. Lucky for me I'm actually quite good at hiding my emotions so I won't give him the satisfaction of letting him know he worries me. I didn't look away from his gaze.

He didn't scare me when he was an academy student and he's not gonna scare me now! I don't care what new techniques he learned. He's gonna have to try a lot harder than an icy cold stare to get my knees trembling.

"An extra member?"

"Just for the time being." I said calmly.

Sai held up his sword. Sakura glared at him. "Oh, no you don't!"

I raised my right eyebrow again. "Hm?"

"He's trying to kill Sasuke!" said Sakura. I glanced at Sai still careful not to let any emotions show.

"It's true." Sai admitted. "My mission was an assassination of Sasuke at first but those orders don't matter anymore. I want to think and act for myself." Sai's eyes stayed on Sasuke. "I don't want to forget how I used to feel for my brother because I strongly believe that those feelings were very important to me."

"I may not know any of you well…there's a reason why you chase after Sasuke. I may not understand it very well myself but….you, Sasuke, should know why."

"Sure I know." Said Sasuke. "That's why I severed them. I have other bonds that I carry. Fraternal bonds, forged through hate."

I remember the time when I first met Itachi and his comrade Kisame. I may have been kinda busy hiding in the room that Naruto and me were once chatting in (what? I admit I was scared!) I heard Itachi mutter some words to Sasuke. Something about lacking another something.

I could only imagine the kind of pain some people felt. My life was very boring. So I could only do two things. Imagine what it's like and listen if they want to talk.

"All my other bonds cause me to lose focus and weaken my strongest wish and desire."

Naruto looked away from Sasuke (don't remove your eyes form the enemy!) and looked at the ground. "If that's true…then why..." Naruto shot his head back up and glared at Sasuke. "Why didn't you kill me when you had the chance?!!"

Sasuke put his hand on his hip. "It wasn't because I'm unable to sever those bonds. I just didn't want to give him the pleasure of seeing me attain power by submitting to his plans."

I assumed Sasuke was talking about his bro, Itachi. In some ways I figured Sasuke was actually very strong but not because of his birth or his abilities, it's just that if my older sister, Shizumo, decided that she wanted to turn insane and murder all my family members I'm not sure what I'd do.

I blinked and realized a problem. Sasuke wasn't standing where he once was. I whipped my head and quickly saw him right in front of Naruto. Sasuke's left hand was placed on Naruto's right shoulder while his other reached for his sword.

"….you're going to end up losing your life, all at a whim of mine." He said.

Oh crap! I zone out for a few seconds and now Sasuke's gonna kill Naruto!!

"Like there's any chance someone, who can't save a friend, could become hokage." Naruto replied. "Don't you think Sasuke?"

"Hmpf." Sasuke got ready to stab Naruto but in a blink of an eye Sai moved and grabbed onto Sasuke's wrist. Sasuke looked at him. "Your choice of defense….quite correct."

What happened next happened fast. Naruto flipped himself over Sasuke while Yamato put his hands together and had wood shoot out of his palm. I swiftly grabbed a kunai but before I could move, not only did Sasuke activate his sharingan; he also showed us a new move.

"_**Chidori Discharge."**_

Chidori sparks came out from his entire body knocking Naruto and Sai back. Sakura rushed at him, fist raised. "Sasuke! I'm going to stop you with my own power!"

Chidori formed around Sasuke's sword. Yamato jumped in front of Sakura sensing the danger. Sasuke's sword easily cut the kunai Yamato held and sliced Yamato's shoulder and he was rammed into a wall. "You're choice of defense….quite the mistake." Said Sasuke.

Sasuke took his sword out of Yamato. "You see, this sword of kusanagi is a little special. It's the kind that can't be blocked." I studied the wound on Yamato and his sword.

It's too bad Sasuke was so good at releasing the chidori now. He must be sending chidori to the tip of the blade so not only with it make the blade sharp…it will make the body go numb.

I immediately threw four kunai at Sasuke and he easily deflected them. Jackass. Get hit dammit.

Naruto tried struggling to his feet. I realized his eyes turned red and the marks on his cheeks widen. Was he going to use the chakra he used against Orochimaru? Sasuke glanced at Naruto.

Now what am I supposed to do? Do I risk getting killed myself? I was only put on this team for my medic skills in the first place. Not for my ability to fight. I probably should since that's what ninja's do all the time. Sigh. I'm so selfish.

Yamato seeing that Sasuke was distracted by Naruto clasped his hands together again and wood shot out from his wound at Sasuke pushing away his sword. Sasuke, was no doubt, a little surprised. He immediately was forced back and jumped to a safe distance.

"Why don't you get it!" hollered Naruto. "Your body's going to be stolen by Orochimaru!!"

"If it happens, then it happens." Replied Sasuke. "You're still a kid Naruto. Revenge means everything to me. As long as I can have my revenge, I don't care what happens to me or the whole world for that matter. If I'm able to kill Itachi, by offering nothing more than offering Orochimaru's body of mine….then he can have my life. And my afterlife for that matter."

Did I say I was selfish? Sasuke is so the selfish one here.

Yamato stood up. "I hoped I wouldn't have to resort to my cruder methods but Sasuke leaves me no choice."

Sasuke clasped his hands together. "Now things end." Sasuke raised his hand but a certain sannin grabbed his hand. "Now, now, there's no need to use 'that' jutsu Sasuke-kun."

Sasuke looked at Orochimaru. "Remove your hand. I have no reason to stop."

"There you go again…" Kabuto appeared next to him. "Forgetting who exactly it is you're talking to. You know quite well what the Akatsuki is up to. We need our Konoha guests here to get rid of as many of them as possible. Even one would be fine."

"That's a pathetic excuse." Said Sasuke.

"But surely you'd allow it if it raises your chances of succeeding in revenge…right?"

Sasuke was silent.

"It's time to leave my darlings." Said Orochimaru. I notice Naruto and Sasuke look at each other one last time before Sasuke and his "peeps" left.

Naruto stared at the air a moment longer and looked down most likely reflecting on his inability to do something. He sank lower and started to sob.

"Crying won't solve anything." Sakura said without looking at him. "I'm here too so we can get stronger together!" Her shoulders started to shake.

"There's almost another half year left." Sai smiled. "And besides four is better than two. You still have me and Akizakura to help you. I'm pretty strong myself, remember?"

Naruto wiped his tears. I moved over to him and grabbed his arm to help him stand up. "Don't fell bad Naruto. You and Sakura still have a lot of good chances to get him."

Naruto looked at me sadly and gave me a small nod. "Thanks……guys."

So we failed the mission to retrieve Sasuke…again. The only thing right now is to go back to Konoha.

And just get stronger.

-----------------------------------

_**I let two parts of the stories out at the same time for a couple of reasons.**_

_**1: I thought they were already out.**_

_**2: It seems it's been awhile since I've updated.**_

_**Thank you everyone who reviewed!!!**_


	10. Confusion

"**It's not like you to fail your mission." Said Danzou.**

**Sai kneeled in front of him. "I have one request to ask of you…."**

"**A request you say…?"**

"**Yes…I wish to stay with Team Kakashi for the time being with my name as it is." Sai smiled at him.**

**Danzou was silent. The smile that 'Sai' gave him….was strange. "Yes, I've been informed by Tsunade. However, let me remind you Sai…emotion leads one to hate and hate leads to conflict and war…"**

"_**Fraternal bonds, forged through hate."**_

"**That may be the cause…" said Sai. "Still…"**

"_**Sasuke is my friend and he represents bonds…bonds I've waited so long to receive."**_

-------------------------------

I sighed as I entered the library with Sakura. "Why are we here again?" I asked in a bored tone. Sakura frowned. "I told you already! We're just going to study medicine for the intermediate."

"But you already read that…." I said sadly. "But you haven't. We both have to focus more on our medic and fighting skills for battles soon to come." Sakura pointed down the hallway. "Go look down there."

I know better than to argue with Sakura. I'm not sure if she realizes that she learns more than techniques from the fifth hokage. I walked down the library's hall hardly looking at any of the books. It's not that I don't like library's, I'm just more in a mood to take a nap. As I reached the tables where people read I noticed a familiar boy around my age with short black hair reading at one of the tables.

"Hey Sai?"

He didn't hear me. He was too focused on reading his book. I walked up to him and poked his shoulder. He looked up at me clearly surprised to see me there. "I didn't know you liked reading."

"I don't…not really." He said quietly.

"What kind of book are you reading?" I asked. Sai handed a book to me. I looked at the title. "How to quickly become friends with people? What does that mean?!"

Sai looked a little embarrassed. "Exactly what it says…"

Why would Sai need to read a book like this? I flipped open a page and started reading:

_**In order to hasten the development of understanding between yourself and others the first thing to do is reduce any emotional barriers. To combat this, one should first take the initiative to stop using such suffixes. Alternatively, assigning nicknames or other terms of endearment may be viable options. By doing such, one is able to position themselves in a particularly close relationship.**_

I looked up from the book. "If you don't mind me saying this is ridiculous."

Sakura walked up to us. "Sakura-san…you're here too?" Sai asked.

Since when did he start calling her Sakura-san? Oh, right. It's that damn book. Sakura looked down at one of the books Sai was looking at. Its title was: Fostering better interpersonal relationships.

"Hey Akizakura…"

I looked at Sakura. "What?"

"Naruto and I are going to visit Kakashi-sensei in the hospital. You should come with us. You haven't seen Kakashi-sensei in awhile." She turned towards Sai. "You should come as well Sai, since you're also a member of Team Kakashi."

Sai looked at her. "Kakashi….sensei…?" He looked back at me. I failed to read his expression. "And you'll be going Akizakura-san?"

Again with the 'san' thing. "I guess…." I said shrugging. "It has been a long time since I've even seen the weird jounin." Sakura smiled at Sai. "C'mon Sai! You should go."

Sai shut his book. "Alright…"

------------------

Sakura called over to Naruto who was sitting quietly on stairs to the hospital. Poor guy. Probably still bummed about the fact that we failed to get Sasuke. When Naruto noticed Sakura he smiled but then looked at me and Sai and frowned.

"What are they doing here?"

Sakura smiled. "Me and Akizakura ran into Sai at the library so I figured he should come with us." Naruto frowned and stretched. "Jeez….I was just devising a plan for the two of us to go on a walk, almost like a date! Oh! Maybe it can be a double date!"

Sakura frowned at him. "If you have the time to think about that stuff, then you should go study ninjutsu or something!"

"Studying…right." Naruto shook his head and sighed. "How can you even go to the library? It's so uncomfortable there!"

"You're right, Naruto." I smiled. "Studying is for dorks with no time on their hands." Sakura slapped me upside the head. "Ow! What was that for?"

"Don't agree with Naruto!" She glared. "You'll only encourage him to goof off!"

"But I was only kidding….." I said quietly. Sakura faced Naruto again. "Training involves the mind as well as the body. You need to stop being so stupid Naruto."

Sai studied the three of us. "I see…so Sakura doesn't use any name suffixes when talking to Naruto-kun…" He muttered quietly. Naruto frowned at Sakura. "Sakura-chaaaaaaaan….that's saying too much."

"A…Akizakura…Naruto…..Sakura…." Sai spoke so quietly I almost didn't hear him. When I looked over at him he… looked embarrassed. There was a small tint of red on his cheeks. "Would you mind if…I joined in the conversation as well?"

We were struck speechless.

Sai quickly became nervous and looked away. "Ah! ….er…I read this book…about getting to know people and stuff, and…it said I should drop name suffixes, or use nicknames and such. By doing so it creates a feeling of closeness, allowing people to become friends more quickly."

Naruto was the first to reply. "Heh…I didn't think you cared about that stuff."

"That explains the books you were reading." Said Sakura smiling. "Yeah…." Sai still looked a little nervous. I still actually couldn't believe people wrote books like that. Sure, I found it sweet that Sai was trying to improve our friendships but reading those books…..unnecessary. People usually learn about things like that on their own.

Naruto smirked. "Nicknames aren't something you think about, they just happen!"

"If you're going to use a nickname then you can for instance, use someone's characteristics." Suggested Sakura. "Like, here, take Naruto." She pointed at him. "He'd be **stupid** Naruto or **idiot** Naruto." Naruto frowned sadly at her. "Sakuraaaa, that's way overdoing it."

Sai held his chin in thought. "Characteristics huh? I see…"

I frowned. "Sakura! Don't tell him that! He'll get confused!" Sai had seriously changed. When we first met him he didn't care about emotions at all and now that he has them back he's trying to understand them.

Sai smiled at Sakura. "Thanks, I think I got the hang of it now…UGLY DOG."

Sakura smiled for a moment before screaming. "Sai! That's way overdoing it!!" hollered Naruto.

"Huh?" Sai was still smiling. "What do you mean?"

I couldn't let this go on. If I continue to let Sakura and Naruto try to teach Sai about emotions and friendship he'd only end up learning……well….nothing. I had to step in. I stepped in front of Sai. "Okay Sai!" I said determinedly. "Forget everything they told you!"

"Huh?"

Sakura shoved me out of the way and punched Sai. "It's your own fault for telling him stuff like that!" I hollered.

She ignored me completely. "TAKE IT BACK!!" Sakura screeched.

---------------

Kakashi stared at the four of us. He looked over at Sai tiredly. "I see…so this is the new member….Sai was it? Nice to meet you." Sai was still rubbing his sore cheek where Sakura hit him. "Thank you."

Kakashi waved at Sakura. "Sakura…come here for a sec…." She walked over to him.

"Both Sai and Naruto are hurt…did they get into a fight? Naruto's a bit short tempered so it doesn't surprise me but…" Sakura started nervously laughing and waved her hand in front of her face. "Oh! No it's nothing really! We're all really good friends!" I sighed.

"Well then things are okay I suppose…" said Kakashi. Naruto stepped forward. "Kakashi, our last mission…." Kakashi looked into his yellow book. "Yamato already told my about it….and Sasuke."

Naruto frowned sadly. "We don't have much time left. With our level of power we can't bring Sasuke back. He's become too strong."

I frowned at Naruto. "So? That just means we have to get stronger!!"

"Exactly right Akizakura." Said Kakashi not looking up from his book. Sakura frowned. "Sasuke's speed wasn't normal…Tsunade-sama told me it's possible he's been using forbidden jutsu or has been given drugs during his training. And with someone like Kabuto with him…."

"You just need to get stronger at a fast rate." Said Kakashi. "All of you."

"But how?" asked Sakura. "I've been doing some thinking while here in the hospital and something came to me. But this method is best for someone like Naruto…actually he's the only one who's capable of doing it." Replied Kakashi.

Ha ha! So that means I can leave all the hard work to Naruto! Sweet.

Kakashi looked at Naruto. "With this training you'll surpass me…in a way of speaking…"

Hmm…sounds hard. Good thing I won't be the one doing it!

Naruto stared at Kakashi. "Surpass…you?"

"Right. During this I'll be with you the whole time."

"What will we be doing?" asked Naruto getting excited.

"You'll develop an ultimate ninjutsu to call your own. In other words, something better than the rasengan."

Sounds hard _and_ scary! Now I'm definitely glad I probably won't have to work hard.

Kakashi looked up at Naruto. "You must spend a massive amount of time and effort for this. It's not like you're going to get stronger over night like the character of a novel…"

"But we have no time!" shouted Naruto. "Yeah, but I thought of a way to do it in a short time." Kakashi said tiredly. "How?" asked Naruto. Before he could answer the door to the room opened and in walked Asuma, Shikamaru, Ino, and Chouji. "How's the body doing Kakashi?" asked Asuma smiling. Ino frowned at him. "Asuma-sensei, you're supposed to knock first, you know!"

"Hey, if it isn't Naruto Akizakura, and Sakura! How did the mission…." He noticed Sai. He frowned immediately. "You're that…"

Oh yeah…last time he saw Sai, Sai attacked Naruto and him with his ink jutsu. Sai smiled at the team. "Nice to meet you."

------------------------

Chouji stuffed a chip into his mouth. "Oh, was that all it was?" Sai was still smiling. "My name is Sai. Please do not worry about using name suffixes with me." I laughed mentally and went to stand next to Sakura and Ino.

Ino eyed Sai. "Wow…you know, he is pretty good looking…and he kinda looks like Sasuke-kun." She whispered to us smiling. I glanced at Sai. I guess he was pretty good looking…I never really thought about it but now that I am…

"He's good looking but socially clueless." Sakura whispered to Ino. Asuma faced us. "You guys can go ahead to "Yakiniku and if everyone from Team Kakashi wants to come you can…"

Chouji shot his fist in the air. "Yeah! Yakiniku!!" Ino smiled. "I'm in!"

"I'll take care of the bill." Said Asuma. "HEY! What about the training Kakashi!?" shouted Naruto.

"We'll so it later."

"But I want to know now!!"

----At the Restaurant--------

We chose to sit at a long narrow table. Sakura sat at the end while I sat across from her. Sai sat on my right and Ino, who I'm guessing decided that Sai was indeed good looking sat next to him. On my left sat Naruto and Chouji.

"Hey, where did Shikamaru go?" asked Sakura. "He went to go help his dad with medicines." Chouji said while stuffing food into his mouth. "I get dibs on his food!!"

"Chouji!" Ino frowned. "We should introduce ourselves to Sai first!"

"Ah, guess you're right…"

Sai smiled at the both of them. "…please, go ahead…" I eyed him suspiciously. If Sai dare used the 'word' for a nickname for Chouji we'd all have to duck for cover.

Chouji scratched his head. "Umm…I'm Chouji Akimichi of the Akimichi clan. Nice to meet you…Sai, was it?"

"Nice to meet you too, umm…." Sai paused. "Fa……" My eyes widened in fright upon seeing Chouji's eye twitch. Naruto jumped over the table and covered Sai's mouth with his hand. "Don't use "fatso" with Chouji!" He whispered harshly. "Got it?"

Naruto moved back to his spot. "Were you saying something?" asked Chouji. Sakura shook her head. "It's nothing!" I frowned sadly at Sai. He thinks it's good to give people nicknames that describe them but what Naruto and Sakura forgot to mention is that the nicknames aren't supposed to be insulting. It's so hard for Sai.

Ino smiled sweetly at Sai. "I'm Ino Yamanaka, daughter of the Yamanaka flower shop owners! Nice to meet you!" Sai looked at Ino. So far Sai has been honest with Sakura and told her that she's ugly. But now if he says the opposite….

"Nice to meet you…umm…"

Sakura and I stared at him nervously.

"_Ms. Beautiful."_

I must have looked scary or something because Naruto and Chouji cowered under the table quickly. Or maybe it was because of Sakura. She didn't waste any time attacking Sai. "WHAT THE HELL IS BEAUTIFUL ABOUT INO!??!!"

---------------------------

_**A lot of people keep on telling me that they like the OC, which gives me a sigh of relief. I was afraid she'd be a little annoying.**_

_**One more thing: It might take longer to update for awhile because a friend pointed out a whole bunch of mistakes in the last chapters. (I didn't know I had that many!!! SORRY!!!)**_


	11. Good Bye

_**Okay I'm really sorry I haven't updated in awhile but school is trying to eat me and I don't know the password to get on the computer so even when I do have free time I can't.**_

-----------------------------------

I crept quietly around the Hokage's office. When I found the door I was looking for I knocked quietly on it. It opened quickly and there stood my older cousin: Risuke. He frowned at me. "What are you doing here?"

I smiled. "I'm bored." He shook his head and sighed. "Can't you go bother your teammates? I'm very busy."

"Aww…poor Risuke. Only chuunin level and already working like jounin." Risuke's like the exact opposite of me. Serious, hardworking, and…uh…very lame. I stopped smiling. "Anything interesting going on?"

"I can't tell you."

"You told me stuff last time."

"Last time I wasn't thinking and I got in trouble."

I shrugged. "Okay, fine! I guess I'll go…and bug my aunt." Heh, heh, pun. After five steps Risuke stopped me. "Hang on." I paused. "I don't want to worry you…but I feel you should know." Uh oh. He's really serious. Maybe I don't want to know.

"What is it?" Being curious sucks.

"Akatsuki members have been spotted around the guardian gates."

I raised my eyebrow. "Huh?"

Risuke did a heavy sigh. "The 12 guardian ninjas. You've never heard of them?" I shook my head.

"You know Asuma right?"

I nodded. "Shikamaru's teacher and friend."

"He used to be a part of that group. He might still be I don't know but the point is the guardians were attacked by two people who were wearing the Akatsuki uniform but don't tell anyone. I just want you to be on your toes in case the worse happens okay?" 

"Um…okay." He closed the door in my face.

Naruto has the Kyuubi inside of him. That's obvious. Could they be coming here for him? I decided I'd pay him a visit if he wasn't too busy. I haven't seen him for a couple days anyway.

-----Ichiraku----------

I saw Naruto sitting with Kakashi and Yamato at the shop. Naruto was laying on the counter muttering about food. "Where's Ayame?" asked Kakashi lazily to the owner, Teuchi.

"She's on vacation!" Teuchi replied and pointed at two men. "These are the men I hired in replace." One guy man introduced himself as Nishi, the other Matsu. They gave Naruto a bowl of ramen and the owner started to yell at them. When I got closer I realized one of the new men accidentally put their finger in the soup a little.

"The customers aren't here to taste your hands!! Nishi! Make another!"

"Aye sir!"

I walked up to Naruto but he didn't notice me right away. "So…h…hungry….." he murmured. Nishi tripped in his hurry causing the owner to yell at him as well. Nishi and Matsu ran out and hid behind Kakashi. "Teuchi-san, calm down." He said putting his hands up. "That happens a lot."

"That's the problem!!" Teuchi yelled.

Kakashi noticed me standing there and waved lightly. "Oh, it's Akizakura. Done with daily training?"

"Of course." No.

I looked at Naruto. "Has Naruto been working hard?" Naruto was drooling freely now. "He got up early and started his training immediately." Replied Kakashi looking at him.

Wow. Naruto's working hard. After a lot of screaming and yelling Naruto got his bowl of ramen and ate it like there was not tomorrow while Yamato just stared at the ramen disapprovingly.

"OKAY! I'M COMPLETELY ENERGIZED!!" Naruto shouted happily. He whipped his head to face me. "Akizakura! You're here!" His powers of observation are absolutely amazing.

"Hang on Naruto." Kakashi said calmly. "I've got something extremely cool to show you…"

Naruto started at Kakashi. "What do you mean?" Cool to show? I wanna see too. I mean if someone like Kakashi says it's cool it's got to be cool. Right?

"First I need to explain some things." Kakashi replied. Naruto frowned at him. "I hate explanations…"

"Don't worry…I have a way with words…"

This ought to be good. Kakashi glanced at Yamato. "Yamato, here, if you wouldn't mind."

Yamato frowned. "What? Isn't it the sempai who that's supposed to pay in these situations?"

Kakashi smiled under his mask. "In my eyes, once I respect you, **sempai** and **kouhai** mean nothing…granted…you're pretty much the only kouhai I've ever respected…" I noticed he said this with a twinkle in his eye. Kakashi then looked away and closed his eyes frowning sadly. "Although I suppose I could…"

"Oh no! I'll take care of everything!" Yamato called and smiled as he took out his wallet. Kakashi did a quick peace sign behind his back while Naruto snickered and I stood there feeling a little sorry for Yamato that he fell for that. He must really respect Kakashi for it to work so easily.

As Yamato payed for their meal I faced Kakashi. "Mind if I come with you guys and observe?"

Kakashi glanced at me. I smiled sweetly. "I won't get in the way. Promise"

"I don't see why not." He said tiredly.

I smirked.

------Training Grounds-----------

"So what do you want to show me?" asked Naruto. "Let's review first…" said Kakashi. Kakashi basically explained a chakra controlled technique that was important as "elemental re-composition" and "spatial re-composition" where one can control the shape of chakra and then I zoned out.

Why did I come here? I thought I was trying to decrease my boredom. I got up this morning, talked to Risuke….oh yeah. I wanted to check on Naruto because of the Akatsuki. Naruto's yelling brought me back to reality.

"Oh yeah! This is gonna be easy!!"

"If it was easy I wouldn't have to develop the chidori." Kakashi said. He held up hand and laid it out flat. "This is what I wanted to show you…" Chakra started to swirl around the palm of his hand. The chakra, rotating at a fast speed, formed an orb shaped chakra rasengan.

"You can do the rasengan too?!" shouted Naruto.

"Yes, but this is all I can do." Kakashi held the rasengan a little higher. "I can't combine my 'elementally recomposed' lighting chakra with the 'spatially recomposed' chakra of the rasengan."

"It takes incredible amount of skill or natural talent." Stated Yamato.

"Even my teacher…" said Kakashi. "Who devised the rasengan only got this far."

So Naruto has to learn a technique that not even the fourth could master…poor Naruto. He's got his work cut out for him. The rasengan itself was never fully developed.

"From here on out you can't be taught." Said Kakashi. "You know why I'm telling you this?"

Naruto stayed silent. Kakashi smiled at him. "It's because I have great expectations for you as a shinobi, Naruto. I believe that only you can surpass the fourth hokage."

Wow. Kakashi really is a nice guy if you overlook everything bad about him……….wait….if I did that with everyone of course they'd be nice.

Note to self: stop thinking idiot thoughts.

Naruto's training was…very boring. Once the chakra of the Kyuubi started to come out but Yamato took care of it with his earth jutsu. He complained that he couldn't stop the kyuubi's chakra every time and Kakashi replied by telling him that Naruto needs his help to learn that jutsu.

After a couple more hours Naruto plopped down on his butt. "What's wrong?" asked Kakashi. Naruto didn't look at him but just continued staring at the ground tiredly. "It's no use….."

Kakashi's eyes widened. "Naruto, are **you** actually giving up? That's not like you."

"Forming just the rasengan is hard enough…but this is a whole different thing. It's impossible."

"It's not impossible! You just need to try harder!" I shouted at him. "How can someone like you be giving up over something as trivial as this?" Naruto looked at me and frowned more. "Easy for you to say." He said. "You're not trying to surpass what the fourth invented."

I frowned at Naruto. "And being Hokage is supposed to be easier?!"

Naruto stopped frowning and stared at me.

"Just think of this as training for you to become Hokage. Leading a huge village like Konoha has gotta be harder than trying to figure out how to level up the rasengan."

Naruto looked down again his sad face returning. "Leveling up the rasengan is just like trying to look right and left at the same time." Naruto replied.

"That's easy." Stated Kakashi. He made a clone of himself. "If I look right…" said the clone looking right. "And I look left…" said Kakashi while looking left. "Problem solved." They said at the same time.

Naruto stared at him then smiled. "I get it!!"

"Hm?"

Naruto made two clones and did the rasengan again with his clones helping him form it, only this time it was a perfect bright sphere. I smiled. "You did it!"

Naruto smirked. "Of course! What would anyone expect from the future Hokage?!"

Oops…I think I might have made Naruto more of a ego maniac guy with my short speech there.

"I got one of my clones to do the 'Elemental Recomposition'!" Naruto yelled happily.

"You really live up to your title. 'Most Unpredictable Ninja'." Said Kakashi. "Naruto…how shall I put it…?"

Naruto and I looked at Kakashi eagerly to hear what he had to say.

Kakashi smiled under his mask. "**I think I'm starting….to fall in love with you.**"

"…………………………………………………"

Both of our eyes widened as big as dinner plates as we frowned greatly. Naruto's new rasengan blew up in his face sending him and his clones back. "UWAHA!!!"

I jumped away from both of them until I decided I was at a safe distance.

"Don't surprise me by saying sick things like that!! Jeez!!!" hollered Naruto. "My jutsu just blew up in my face just when I was getting the hang of it!!!!!"

Kakashi scratched his head while walking towards Naruto and waved his hand to try to calm Naruto down. "No, no…I didn't mean it like that…It's that, you see…."

"NOT ANOTHER STEP CLOSER!!!!" screeched Naruto shaking his arm

"YOU SHOULDN'T HIT ON YOUR STUDENTS KAKASHI!!!" I hollered eyes still wide.

Kakashi sighed. "You both misunderstand."

A couple feet away a ninja jumped in front of Yamato. "I have a message." He said.

Naruto glanced over to the two. "What's going on?"

"Kakashi-sempai!!!" called Yamato. "We're putting the training on hold to go back to the village!"

"What happened?" asked Kakashi.

Yamato said nothing at first.

"**Sarutobi Asuma-san…has passed away.**"

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_**Whenever I get a review I get so happy that I just start writing some more. (No, I'm not trying to get you people to review just so I'll update. (I'd update no matter what…unless I died.) I'm just saying you reviewing people make me really happy.**_

_**And if the next chapter is not interesting may I be horribly slaughtered………I mean……get lots of ice cream… . **__**Sorry there was no Sai in this one ;-;**_


	12. Mr Smiley

Kurenai kneeled in front of Asuma's grave and placed flowers in front of it. I stood behind Naruto, Konohamaru was sobbing. "Uncle…Asuma…." Naruto put his hand on Konohamaru's shoulder.

I hate funerals.

"Where's Shikamaru?" Ino whispered to Chouji. "I don't know." He replied. "I went by his house, but his mom said he's already left…"

It has been awhile since I've actually talked to Shikamaru. We weren't the best of friends but we were still friends.

-----------------------------

I had no luck finding him that day so I went out searching again in the morning.

Where the hell was he?!? He could really hide when he wanted to. As I was about to break into a run someone shoved hard into my shoulder while passing me. I fell down on my butt and before I could jump back up again I saw Sai staring calmly at me.

"You know it's considered polite if you help someone up from knocking them down." I said. Sai didn't move. "Help me up." It sounded like an order. I didn't mean to make my voice sound that firm. Sai reached out his hand. I grabbed for it and he pulled me up.

"Good job." I commented. "Maybe you're not totally hopeless after all."

"You don't seem very sad."

"About what?" I asked as I dusted the dirt of my pants.

"Asuma's death." I stared at him for a moment then smiled sadly. "I wasn't close enough to him but I do feel really bad for his team."

Sai said nothing. Why was he so quiet today? Was it something I said? Something I did? I decided to break the silence. "Seen any other members of Team Kakashi lately?"

"Kakashi recently joined team ten to attack the Akatsuki members that killed Asuma."

My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. "WHAT THE HELL!?!" Sai jumped from my sudden outburst.

"Why didn't anyone tell me?!"

"What would you have done?" Sai asked quietly.

Good Question. "I……………….wouldn't be complaining now." I said smiling. Sai looked away calmly for a moment. "Akizakura….." a small tint of red rose to his cheeks. My eyes widened. Why Sai was acting so polite to me in the first place today made me wonder.

I guessed it was because Sai thought I might really be bummed about Asuma's death and he didn't wanna make me feel any worse. Awww Sai's a sweetie pie.

It was only a guess though.

But I was more worried about the blush on his cheeks at the moment. Why the heck was Sai you possibly…."

Just spit it out.

"Help me learn more about...emotions?"

Ha……of course. Poor Sai's embarrassed about not knowing much about emotions! What did I think he was gonna say!?!

I laughed. "Sure! But on one condition." Sai stared at me. "You have to forget everything Naruto and Sakura told you."

"Are you sure that's right?"

"Don't question your teacher Sai."

"Akizakura, you're not…." Sai paused. I eyed him suspiciously. "I'm not what?"

"You don't…...how shall I put this? I know I asked you and all but I'm not sure you're teacher material."

I frowned. "I think I am teacher material compared to Naruto."

"I suppose."

I smiled and pointed my finger in Sai's face. "Now no more questioning me, got it?" I didn't wait for him to answer. I grabbed onto his sleeve and pulled him down the street. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"There are no classes today so we're gonna go borrow a classroom at the academy."

"Is that even allowed?"

"No idea. Though it's kinda sad because after I graduated I swore I wouldn't go back in a classroom."

-----------------------------------------

I drew a bad smiley face on the board. "Okay Sai, you know what this is right?"

Sai stared at me. "It's a smile…of some sort."

"Don't make fun of Mr. Smiley. You'll make him sad."

"Mr. Smiley isn't sad over the fact that he looks like-"

"Enough with Mr. Smiley!!" I threw the chalk at Sai's head. "The point is that you know what Mr. Smiley symbolizes right?"

"Being happy?"

"And what makes a person happy?" Sai went into deep thought. When he looked up again he answered. "Completing a mission...?"

"Uh…yeah that could make a person happy." I thought for a moment. "Actually there are a millions of things that could make a person happy."

"Such as?"

"Um….well let's say you're sick. Wouldn't you feel better if one of your friends came to visit you?" Sai gave me a calm stare which I'm guessing meant that he didn't quite understand. I scratched my head. "If you're sick and someone visits you it shows that they care and therefore that you're important to them. You're needed y'know?"

Sai opened his mouth to say something but at that moment the classroom's door flew open and there stood Iruka. He looked at Sai than at me and raised his eyebrow. I raised my eyebrow back at him. "What are you two doing here?" he asked.

"I'm teaching." I said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Shouldn't you two be getting ready? I hear if Naruto can complete his new jutsu your team will be going as back up for Shikamaru's."

I gaped at him. "Eh?!" Iruka sighed. "You should really pay attention more often Akizakura. It will do you good."

I pulled Sai out of his seat. "C'mon Sai! Let's go get ready!"

"You act as if Naruto has already completed his jutsu." Sai said calmly. I smiled. "If it's Naruto he should be almost done with it already and that means we're going to the battlefield soon!" Hey…that should make me annoyed. I don't like battle. Isn't spare energy a lovely thing?

Iruka sat down at his desk. "Let's hope you can keep this energy up Akizakura. You're going to need it if you're going after the Akatsuki."

"Let's hurry out of here Sai. Being in a classroom is making me depressed." I said quickly as I pulled Sai and myself out of Iruka's glare.

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_**Yes, it's true I'm still alive. Our computer got a bad virus so we had to get a new one. It's so much faster and prettier! Sorry if this one's a little short but to make up for it I'll try to make the next one will be extra long.**_


	13. Akatsuki

When Sai and I arrived to Naruto and Yamato's training ground I noticed Sakura was also there while he was packing all his things. "What're you doing Naruto?" I asked raising an eyebrow. He looked up at me with a confident look about him. "I did it." he said.

I stared at him. "Eh?"

"I did most of the jutsu."

I looked at him with complete shock. "Already!?!? I know you've been training for awhile but……already!?!" Sai turned to me calmly. "You're the one who said that Naruto would be able to complete the jutsu." I frowned at Sai. "Yeah, but I didn't think it would be _this _soon." Naruto stood up. "It's not complete...but we're going anyway."

I just got here. "So soon?" I asked wondering if I should say I just got a stomach ache all of a sudden. "Shikamaru's team is facing two Akatsuki members. We're leaving right away." Yamato said firmly.

I clutched me stomach. "Oh…oww……I think I have a stomach-"

Yamato turned to me with his dark and ominous face. **"You have a what now?"**

My fist shot in the air immediately. "A sudden urge to kick Akatsuki butt!! Let's go!!!" I smiled. "Oh no, I forgot all my weapons and what not. Guess you guys will go ahead and I will go back to my house and get my stuff."

Yamato smiled and handed me a bag. "No worries. I have an extra one. You can use it."

Whaa…

--------------------------------------------

The Akatsuki member looked at Kakashi, Ino, and Chouji. **"Been awhile…..since someone destroyed two of my hearts……."** He lunged at them.

"_**Water Element-Destructive Flood!"**_

"_**Wind Element-Hurricane Whirlpool!"**_

A roaring destructive blast of both fire and wind came in between them. Dust and Debris as well as water drops came down as the attack disappeared. "Sorry we're late."

Naruto stepped out into the open in front of Shika's team with the three of us behind him.

The Akatsuki member stepped back. Kakashi gave a sigh of relief. "Good timing…" Ino smiled. "Sakura….Sai-san…Naruto….and Aki-chan too…" I frowned without looking at Ino. Hadn't I insisted that she didn't call me that? Choiji regained his posture. "Reinforcements….saved."

Yamato took a step forward. "This is the first time I've seen you look so un-cool…" He said to Kakashi. "This opponent must be really strong."

One reason why I wasn't so sure we should've come here was that Naruto is already tired just learning the jutsu…or at least part of it.

The member looked at all of us. **"…more weirdoes are here…. that one looks pretty beaten up too…." **He said eyeing Naruto

Naruto looked at Chouji. "Where's Shikamaru?"

"Fighting with another enemy in a different location." Chouji answered. Kakashi summoned his small dog Pakkun. "Would two of you go to his aid? A long distance and medical would be best to go."

Yamato turned to Sai. "Sai and Sakura, follow Pakkun's lead!"

"Right!"

"Understood."

The Akatsuki member chuckled. **"All that happened is the variation I have for hearts I can take increased…."**

Hearts? He steals people's hearts!?! I suddenly feel kinda sick….

"I'll take it from here." Naruto said stepping forward. Sakura turned to him "We're counting on you."

"Did he complete it?" Kakashi asked Yamato. "No. It's about fifty percent." Yamato answered. "However…he's a completely different person than before."

Sai and Sakura took off to find Shikamaru. The Akatsuki member stared at Naruto. **"Ah…I see…you're the Kyuubi…"**

"Please explain the situation and the enemy's powers." Yamato said without taking his eyes of the Akatsuki. "The enemy is two members from Akatsuki…Shikamaru is fighting one and the other one is in front of us. This guy has the power to split those masks at his shoulders and can split from the main body."

I realized that the masks Kakashi was talking about almost looked similar to something an ANBU would wear. "Each of those masks have a heart and can move on its own. He had five to begin with but we took out two."

So basically if we can take out the last three hearts he'll die. Sounded easy enough.

"Plus he's mid-range type and uses all elemental manipulations."

"Naruto!" Yamato called. Naruto and one clone rushed at the enemy. "Yeah! I heard him!"

"Naruto, wait!" called Chouji. "You can't just rush in there by yourself!" Ino shrieked.

Some of the black tentacle things lunged at the clone and made if poof away while Naruto jumped out of there reach for a moment. Then Naruto tripped and the tentacles grabbed onto him and began to tighten. Naruto poofed away.

Yay. Just a clone. Naruto jumped in front of us. Did Yamato plan to have only Naruto fight this enemy? Naruto did a hand sign and made three clones appear. The three clones swiftly formed their hands together and began to form a rasengan.

I quickly covered my poor sensitive ears with my hands because whatever Naruto was making it was making a high pitched sound. "W-what is that?" Ino stared.

Chouji covered his ears. "Such massive charka…."

"**What is that jutsu…!?"**

Judging by the tone in the Akatsuki's voice I'd say even he could tell that if he got hit by that technique it could be over for him. The clone in the center lifted the light blue whirling orb in the air. The energy around it was in a shape of a large shuriken spinning at a dangerously fast rate.

"_**Rasen Shuriken!!!"**_

"We're going to decide it with this!!" Three Naruto's ran at the enemy. "I'll help too!!" hollered Chouji. Yamato put an arm in front of him. "If you get to close to Naruto you'll be hit by it as well!!"

"**So this is the Kyuubi holder's power. It's a monstrous jutsu…"**

One clone jumped above him with a kunai ready. The tentacles pierced him while the two other clones attacked his sides. The masks on the shoulder opened their mouths. The one on the right released a harsh gust of wind while the other shot with fire. Although it succeeded in destroying the clones the Akatsuki left himself wide open letting Naruto rush in.

I couldn't tell if Naruto had gotten him or not. I turned towards Yamato and realized by the look on his face that trouble as gonna come. "A miss."

Kakashi rushed forward. "Just like the unpredictable ninja to do this! Yamato!"

"Yeah!" Yamato followed after him. "Damn!" Naruto yelled as the black tentacles wrapped around him.

"**I'll take your heart…"** The enemy crouched out of the way narrowly dodging one of Yamato's earth attacks. Lightning formed at Kakashi's hand and he swiftly cut away the tentacles holding onto Naruto and pulled him away back towards us.

Dang. This could turn out real bad. I pulled three kunai out of my pocket and readied myself. "Daaang!!" Naruto yelled. Ino sighed. "After acting so cool…I guess that's what we should've expected from Naruto…"

Chouji looked at Naruto. "Rasen shuriken is in the name…I though you'd throw it…so why did you have to run and hit him with it?"

Naruto glared at him. "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO SAY!?! IT'S AWESOME IF I CAN HIT HIM!!!" I patted his head. "Don't worry Naruto. Maybe you can build up your energy and try again." I thought for a moment. "And this time I'll help you."

"Even though it's called Rasen shuriken it has to be a direct hit from a zero distance." Yamato said. "That's why the basics of the jutsu is using kagebushin as a feint but…"

Naruto scowled. "The new jutsu's time limit is still too short. It only lasts a few seconds." Kakashi stated. Chouji frowned. "You can't hit that kind of guy with that kind of jutsu."

I raised my right eyebrow. "You have any other plans?"

"Well…no…"

Naruto stood up. "I'll do this one more time. I'll decide it with my jutsu." Ino shook her head. "This opponent is an Akatsuki if you try to hit him with that you'll just miss…"

"Now that the feint's been exposed it won't work anymore. We'll defeat him together." said Chouji. "True." Kakashi agreed. "It won't work but it's now five against one. There's no need to cross a dangerous bridge."

"Kakashi…do you remember what you said to me during my training?" Naruto asked. Kakashi looked at him. Naruto continued. _"The only shinobi that can surpass the Fourth Hokage is you. That's what I believe."_

"I know teamwork is important but….I want to cross this bridge by myself. If I can't get to the other side I'll stay a kid forever." Naruto stared at the Akatsuki member. "Please don't do anything to remove that bridge." Kakashi stood up. "Heh…what do you think Yamato?"

"Naruto is different than before." Yamato said as he faced Kakashi. "You still haven't seen it have you?"

"It's decided then." said Kakashi.

I smirked and shot a fist into the air. "Knock'em dead Naruto!" And I mean that literally.

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_**Sorry it took awhile to get out again. I've been busy. Evil Civil War report and semester tests and blah blah blah. This one was gonna be a little longer but I decided it was long enough. Sorry if I made any mistakes. (I was at a rush to get this one out.)**_


	14. Success

I kinda regretted letting Naruto go and fight the Akatsuki member alone. Even though I wasn't the best fighter in the world I was willing to fight if it was gonna help. Even a little. But since I'm kinda an average strong kunoichi I know I'd rather stay at home and plant strawberries or bananas. (But I'm not sure if the bananas would grow…)

But for once in my life I was actually really prepared even if I was going up against an S-ranked criminal. I even got there kunai out and everything! If I don't fight soon I'm gonna get bad at fighting…or worse than I already am.

"Go Naruto." said Kakashi. Naruto rushed forward. The Akatsuki member who I was recently told was called Kakuzu opened his mouth making more of the black tentacle things shoot out covering most of the ground in front of him. The tentacles from his back also started to grow. I hope Naruto was fine with this.

"Ewww…" Chouji muttered. Ino looked terrified. Shouldn't she have a little bit more…of …I dunno…a backbone? I'm pretty sure she's been on more missions than I have. "He didn't just change his form, he's also charging himself up with charka." stated Yamato who was started to seem a little worried himself.

Kakashi stared lazily at him. "Likely to prepare himself against Naruto's jutsu." Naruto made three clones of himself. Three of the Naruto's started to make the Rasen Shuriken again while the fourth rushed forward. "Alright! It's ready!!!" one Naruto hollered. The two Naruto's who helped make the Rasen Shuriken ran at Kakuzu.

Kakuzu ran at them and jumped over the first three Naruto's and headed towards the one that had the technique in his hand. That guy was planning to crush it from the looks of it. But would that really work? "I knew it!" shouted Ino. "That guy can see right through it!!" A group of the black tentacles crashed into Naruto. There were so many I couldn't even see what became of Naruto. Was he hurt? In pain? I wish he'd scream or something. I hated not knowing what the results of battle moves were.

Ah! It was hard to see but I swore I saw some white smoke! That Naruto was just another clone. It then made me realize that the real Naruto was right behind him with the Rasen Shuriken ready. Naruto hurled the technique at him. "GOT YA!"

The technique collided with Kakuzu with such a great force it immediately sent Kakuzu flying. Kakuzu yelled in pain as we held up our arms to protect ourselves from the debris that went flying. The wind charka around it was spinning rapidly like a drill and made its way through Kakuzu's chest. His body went flying all the way past us and then exploded.

A shockwave was created and multiple blasts were created simultaneously. I almost felt sorry for the Akatsuki. He was right in the middle of it all. I turned toward Kakashi to see what his reaction was to Naruto's hard work. "Kakashi…how did you think he did?"

Kakashi's eyes looked at me then back at Kakuzu. (Or what was left of him. Basically just two of his masks in a giant crater.) "The frequency of the attacks Kakuzu hit was so amazing…my sharingan eye couldn't read it at all."

I beamed and looked at Naruto who was laying on the grown clearly tired. He's catching up with Sasuke. "Heh Heh….alright." Naruto grinned. "I did it."

I ran towards Naruto with the others not far behind me. "Naruto! That was awesome!!" I exclaimed with excitement. Naruto smiled at me. "Yeah…it was…"

"Where does it hurt?" I asked still smiling. "My back and arm…" replied Naruto weakly. Chouji gently raised Naruto up to a sitting position. He raised his arm and I rolled up his sleeve carefully. Blue charka formed at my hand and I began to heal his arm. Ino moved behind him and started to heal his back. "I can't believe you used your real body as a decoy." she said clearly impressed.

"Heh…" Chouji smiled. "You're not quite as smart as Shikamaru but I guess you're okay Naruto." Naruto smiled a little. "That's unfair. Comparing me to him like that." "I'm impressed that you can use the jutsu three times." said Yamato coming forward. You could barely do two when you were training."

I noticed Kakashi wasn't near and saw that he was talking with Kakuzu. "We should return to the village!" Yamato called to Kakashi. Kakashi gave him a "Mm hm…" and faced Kakuzu again. Yamato faced us. "Let's go everyone."

"What about Kakashi?" asked Ino. "He's gonna finish of Kakuzu." When I glanced at Kakashi again I saw the chidori form in his hand before he finished off Kakuzu.

---------------

We later met up with Sai, Sakura, and Shikamaru. It turned out that Shikamaru didn't need any help at all. By the time help arrived he had already defeated the Akatsuki member.

"Good work everyone." Tsunade commented when we made it back. "Don't get too cocky now though. There are still plenty of Akatsuki to take care of but now you can rest."

We walked out of her office. Ino and Chouji left to head home while Yamato and Kakashi left to who knows where. Then something caught my eye. A cigarette fell out of Shikamaru's pocket as he walked off.

"Hey! Shikamaru!" He stopped and turned around to face me as I picked up the cigarette and waved it in his face. "Have you taken up smoking?! It's really bad for you!"

"The cigarette is a memento….when I was smoking it Asuma-sensei was near." Shikamaru replied calmly.

I stared at him like he was insane then smiled. "That's sweet Shikamaru." Although it's kinda a weird logic thing to go by. I guess it makes more sense than mine though.

_Obey the cookie god._

After Shikamaru walked off I whipped my head to Naruto, Sakura, and Sai. "Hey! We should go get Ramen!!" Naruto beamed with joy and shot his fist into the air. "Yeah!! That sounds really goo-" He immediately cringed and held his arm in pain. "Ow! ow!"

Sakura sighed. "You idiot." She put his arm in a sling and then me and Naruto made her come with us to Ichiraku stand….along with Sai of course.

Naruto frowned trying to get his chopsticks to work with his left hand. "Ow!" Naruto frowned. "I can't eat with this hand." Sakura looked at him for a moment then said "Your arm is fractured in multiple places. Your body can't handle that jutsu so you should only use it when you know you'll hit the enemy with it." Naruto smiled at her. "I'll be fine as long as you'll heal me!"

Sakura frowned. "You can't heal everything back to the way it was with medical jutsu you know!" Naruto stared at her then smiled. "Still…I'm actually kinda enjoying this. We're getting closer to Sasuke. Sakura smiled and little and scooted closer to him." I guess I'll help you eat. Give me your chopstick."

Naruto blushed slightly as if he couldn't believe Sakura was going to feed him. Before Naruto could give Sakura his chopsticks Sai grabbed them and held food up to his mouth. "Okay open wide." he said while smiling as he stuffed the food in.

Naruto glared at him. "HOT!!! AND WHY THE HELL ARE YOU FEEDING ME!?!!" I laughed. "Sai, you're so sweet."

Sai glanced at me. "Sweet?"

Kakashi walked in. "Hey…"

"A true friend helps a friend when they are in need…or so a book told me." said Sai.

"BEFORE YOU READ A BOOK READ THE ATMOSPHERE MAN!! THE ATMOSPHERE!!!"

"You guys are awfully loud." Kakashi said lazily. I laughed harder when it was Kakashi who ended up feeding Naruto.

"This is a rare sight to see you here instead of in bed at a hospital." Sakura said to Kakashi smiling. He looked at her. "Is that how you guys see me now? That's depressing. But you know if you guys didn't show up when you did I really would be in the hospital."

He looked towards Naruto. "Naruto, you've gotten really strong. Maybe you even have already surpassed me but remember." We looked at him. "The stronger the jutsu the more dangerous it is."

"Yeah…" Naruto said glumly.

Kakashi soon left and Naruto started to head home. Sakura decided to go with him in case he hurt his arm again. Sai was about to follow saying something about "A good friend must blah blah." or "When a friend is wounded he blah blah." and that would end with "Or so I read in a book."

I grabbed onto Sai's arm. "Naruto has Sakura. Let's go have some fun!" I said smiling. Sai stared at me. "A good friend has fun with another good friend." I stated before pulling him along.

"What do you have in mind?" Sai asked. I stopped and stared into space. "Uhh……" I really hadn't thought about it. I stared into space. I looked at Sai and frowned. "Don't just stand there Sai. Help me think!"

"You don't know what to do?"

"No. Now think. My brain died."

"Some books say that friends go to festivals."

"But there aren't any festivals happening right now."

"Akizakura?"

"What?" I looked at him. "Do you think I've made any improvements on having emotions?" I stared at him. "I'll check." I tickled his tummy again but still Sai gave no emotions. A frown found its way to my face. "Maybe your just one of those people who just aren't ticklish. Don't worry though! I'm positive you have emotions Sai! We just need something to get them out!"

I grabbed his arm and ran off. "So you know where we're going now?" he asked calmly.

Oh yeah. I need to think of that. "Uhh….." Then it hit me. Sai should meet some of my family. "Yes! First we're going to say hi to a cousin!"

"…"

-----------------------

I knocked on a door around the Hokage's office. "Risukeeeeee." I called.sweetly. No one opened the door. I knocked again calling his name only louder. "Risukeeeeee!" Still no answer. I knocked quietly at first "Risukeeeee…." I banged on the door. "RISUKE!!"

"Perhaps he's just not there?" Sai asked. "No he's there." I said. "He'll do this sometimes. The most he went without opening the door was about three hours."

Sai stared at me calmly. "We're going to do this for three hours?" I smiled sweetly at him. "No! No! This is all up to Risuke!" I faced the door again. "Besides I think he learned his lesson the last time he did that."

"What did you do?" Sai asked. Before I could answer. The door opened showing my very tired cousin. Must've pulled another all nighter. I faced Sai again smiling. "Well Risuke locked the door at first so I couldn't get inside so I threatened to paint on the door. I figured Risuke would stop me before I could but he didn't so I guessed it was okay!"

Risuke leaned on the door and looked tiredly at me. "Hey…."

"After painting on the door he still wouldn't open it. Oh! I also painted Mr. Smiley!" I said that as if it was the best thing that could happen to a door.

"Hey…" Risuke said again a little louder.

"But of course Risuke still wouldn't open up so I decided I'd use charka to break the lock so the door would open."

"Hey." Risuke said again clearer.

"But I ended up using too much and half of the door shattered!! Wood went flying everywhere! Took me almost a week to get all the splinters out but it's okay because Risuke decided to open the door so he got shot with splinters too! We suffered together!!"

"HEY." Risuke said getting angrier.

"Was it fun?" Sai asked. I stared at him. His expression was strange. He actually seemed kinda curious about my story. I smiled. "Yes! It was very fun!"

Sai gave me a small smile. I mentally congratulated for myself for making Sai smile like that. I wasn't completely sure if it was real but it was a start.

"HEY!!" Risuke shouted in my ear making me jump. "You don't ignore someone after you've woken them up." He was so grumpy. I blew a raspberry at him. "It's your own fault for staying up all night. Next time if your gonna stay up all night do it for a party. Not for mission organizing or whatever else you do."

Risuke sighed and walked back into the room. It was a complete mess. Books, scrolls, and papers were scattered everywhere. "Why are you here?" He asked as he began to clean up the place.

"I came to introduce you to Sai!" I pointed at him. Risuke walked over and studied Sai. He was a little taller then him. "Pleased to meet you." Sai said calmly. Risuke shook his hand. "So…does Akizakura annoy you?"

"Hey Risuke, don't be mean."

Sai smiled. I think it was a fake one. "Not at all. She has actually been helping me."

Risuke cocked his head. "Huh?" Then he frowned a little. "Oh yeah….you're Danzou's boy…" From Risuke's face I could tell he didn't like Danzou. With Risuke's position he'd probably met Danzou in the past. Must've not been a very good first meeting. "You're from Roots?"

Sai was silent but still smiling. Except now I could tell for sure that it was a fake smile. "Yes."

Risuke picked up a scroll from the floor. "Members from Roots aren't supposed to have feelings correct?"

"Yes." Sai answered again. "I also hear you had a partner…someone who you may have considered your brother?" Sai said nothing but continued his 'smile'. "He died?"

"Yes."

Risuke looked like he was thinking. "You still work for Danzou…even though he was the one who killed-" He couldn't finish. Why? Because I patted both his cheeks. Hard. I grabbed Sai and smiled. "Well that's my cousin, Sai. Let's go!" I ran out of the building dragging Sai behind.

After awhile I stopped and sat on a bench. "Yikes!" I said. "Maybe saying hi to Risuke wasn't such a good idea huh? He gets so grumpy when he doesn't get enough sleep."

Sai said nothing for a moment. "Why did we run from him?"

I frowned a little. "It looked like…you were getting uncomfortable. Talking about Danzou and all that stuff…"

Sai gave me a fake smile. "I don't mind that much."

I looked at him sadly. "But at Orochimaru's hideout when Yamato was talking to you..."

"_**Sai." Yamato frowned. "I know your part of roots and that Danzou has given you special training to relieve you of your emotions. Training that was identical to training in the village hidden in the mist."**_

"He started to say something that you didn't want to hear and just now I think Risuke was gonna say it."

"_**Sai, your brother was killed by none other than…"**_

I glanced at Sai uneasily. "Do you remember that?"

_**Sai looked up and 'smiled'. "He died of an illness. We weren't even related by blood but he complimented me on my drawings often. "'Roots' was filled with children who lost their parents due to battle. I became close to one, called him my brother."**_

Sai wasn't looking at me anymore or even bothering to smile. "Someone to call a brother…" He looked back at me. "Why did you feel it was necessary to stop your cousin?"

"Well I might be wrong but it looked like he was going to talk about something you didn't want to hear." Sai was silent. I smiled at him. "You know I'm kinda lucky."

"Hm?"

I pushed my bangs out of my face. "You try hard to be a good friend with Naruto and Sakura but I feel we already have that friendly bond. I think it makes it easier to talk to me and that's good for me cause I think you're kinda fun to talk to."

"…"

"Am I wrong?" I cocked my head to the side. Sai hesitated. "No…not entirely." I smiled to myself. "Hey Sai, if we don't have any missions tomorrow we should have lunch together. We'll work on your emotions some more."

---------------------

_**There's something about this chapter that bothers me but I'm not quite sure what it is. Maybe it's too emotional? I tried to make it longer than the last one. Sorry it took so long to get out.**_

_**About the Civil War report…it went okay…I'm not sure if my classmates noticed but they didn't clap for me. They clapped for everyone else who went up so far but they didn't clap for me! I thought I drew a very pretty picture. **__**(At least of the Union guy. The Confederate guy looked bad because his side lost the war. That was my excuse.)**__**I stopped clapping for them.**_


	15. Death

"Hey Sai I have a question

Sakura gave Mr. Smiley a disapproving look. "That's a smile? Doesn't really look like it." I raised my right eyebrow and looked at my poor picture. "Eh...…really?"

Sakura nodded. "It's amazing that Sai even knows what emotion that is at all."

I frowned. "He knows what I was going for….right Sai?" I turned to Sai who was eyeing us while eating some fish that Naruto recently caught. Sai looked at me blankly. "Yes." Naruto came running at us in his swim trunks waving fish he just caught while giving us a wide grin. "Hey! Hey, Sakura!" I shoved Mr. Smiley's face into Naruto's. "Naruto what do you think of this? Be honest." Lie. It will be easier on Mr. Smiley.

"Sai's pictures are way better."

Agreed. "His hair is pretty to." Naruto frowned at me. "What does Sai's hair have to do with anything?"

I shrugged. "Nothing really. It's just really nice hair. Look." I placed my hand on Sai's head and moved it around quickly and lifted my hand up. Each hair fell back into place…well at least most of them did.

"Akizakura, don't mess with Sai's hair." said Sakura. "But it's so soft." But I am surprised he doesn't stop me from kind messing up his hair. Naruto took a bite out of the fish he was eating. "Have you actually been able to teach him _anything_?"

"Um…Oh yeah." I picked up some daisies off the ground. "Sai do you realize that some flowers represent and bring out emotions? They also make great gifts so if ever you screw up a relationship with someone give them flowers." "Flowers can't help Sai with emotions." said Naruto. Sakura frowned at him. "Actually they can Naruto! Some represent patience and even love!"

"But I'm pretty sure Sai's seen flowers before and they never affected his emotions." said Naruto with a mouth full of fish.

Sakura frowned and turned to me. "Maybe Naruto and I should help you out with getting Sai to show his emotions…"

But I don't want your help.

"You don't seem to be accomplishing much by yourself." Come and say that to my face.

I stared at Sakura. "But…I just got Sai to forget everything that you and Naruto told him."

"_WHAT?!"_

Ow. My ears. My poor ears. "You guys were confusing him. He doesn't know when to be sarcastic or not." Sakura sighed heavily and shook her head. "We were doing just fine."

"Okay. Sai can just go around calling Ino _Ms. Beautiful_ aaaall the time."

Sakura twitched. Victory. Sai looked at me. "Should I continue to call her that?"

"NO!" Sakura shrieked making Naruto jump. "…I mean maybe me and Naruto haven't been clear enough. People like us don't need nicknames."

"I wanna nickname." I said. Sakura stared at me as if I was crazy. "I just wanna know what Sai's honest opinion of me is." Naruto smirked. "Oh yeah! Me too!"

Sai looked at him. "Dickless-"I covered his mouth with my hand and held Naruto from attacking Sai with my other. "Sai…no more of that. It's unnecessary." Sakura gathered the spare food and stood up. "Let's go into town. Maybe we can find something that can help Sai." Naruto grinned. "Yeah! It'll be a double date!!"

He'll never let that die.

"Is it so important for some people to date others?" Sai asked calmly. Naruto looked at him wide eyed. "Yeah! It's really serious! In fact if you haven't had a date in so long your body starts decaying! It's really painful! One time I saw this guy who went so long without a date he-"Sakura punched his head.

"Sai isn't so dumb he'd believe something that stupid Naruto. Your pathetic revenge for Sai insulting you is pointless!"

Naruto frowned. "Aww Sakura…"

Sai and I were walking close behind them. Something random popped into my head. "Hey Sai I want you to answer a question for me because I'm curious." Sai glanced at me.

"Did you spare my life because you thought I could get emotions out of you?" I said quickly.

Sai stared at me calmly. He had no idea what I was talking about. "Remember when you ditched us for Orochimaru and I stalked you and then you found me?" It wasn't really stalking though. Promise.

"_**You're going to kill me?"**_

"_**Can you give me a reason why I shouldn't?"**_

"_**Because I'm adorable."**_

"_**I have a whole bunch of new ideas to get real emotions out of you. It will be kinda hard to help you if I'm dead."**_

"I simply didn't know what to feel. That's all." Sai stated.

I stared at his back as he walked ahead. What was wrong with him? His sentences sounded a little cold. What had I done?

Did I do something to upset him? I'm innocent I tell you! …unless you wanna count that missing donut from the donut box. Damn sprinkles. At least his emotions were showing a bit. "Should we go see a movie?" Sakura asked. I smiled "That'd be fun!"

"What do you wanna see?"

Naruto gave a big smile. "Blood of a Shinobi! It's supposed to be really good!"

"I don't know what's showing." Sai said expressionlessly. Sakura thought. "What do you think Akizakura? Maybe they have something that can help Sai with his emotions."

I smiled and let the words fall out. "Icha Icha Paradise: The Movie!!" Sakura glared at me. Naruto gave me a big smile. "Let's see that! But we'd have to disguise ourselves to be over the age of-" Sakura smacked both of us. "NO." she said firmly.

I rubbed my head. "I was only kidding." Naruto frowned. "I bet Sai would want to see the movie. It's the best one to help him with emotions." Sai looked at him. "Is that so?" he asked calmly. Sakura punched Naruto in the arm. "That is **not **the kind of emotions we need to help Sai with. Besides maybe we should help the other shinobi look for the intruders from last night."

Naruto and I stared at her. She frowned at us. "You didn't hear?" Sai turned to us. "Last night an ANBU officer found evidence that an intruder from another village has been moving around our town without permission."

"They're still not found and the ANBU are unsure of how many there are." said Sakura. She turned to Naruto. "Naruto go gather information at the front desk."

"Isn't this supposed to be our day off?"

"We have nothing else to do so get going. I'll go around town and ask people if they've seen anything. Akizakura, you can go with Naruto." Yay me.

Naruto folded his arms and frowned. "Why do we have to do this huh?" "Because if we're not careful a war could erupt between countries. Shinobi who come into a village without the Kage's permission is a serious offense. They could get in real trouble." I think they would just get a slap on the wrist.

Sakura walked off with Sai. Why does she get to be with Sai? She just doesn't want to deal with Naruto acting like it's a date. She's not even interested in Sai…I think. She and Ino did admit that Sai was pretty hot.

The fact that I'm thinking about Sai like this in the first place probably means I'm starting to see Sai as…..wait. Naruto's ditching me. "Naruto, wait up! I'll get lost by myself!" Naruto stopped walking and stared at me. "You'd get lost in your own village?"

"It could happen."

"No, it couldn't."

"Shall I prove it to you?" Similar conversations followed as we walked towards the office. When we got there Sakura was right about trouble. ANBU were walking around all over the building. "Doesn't your brother work here?" asked Naruto not really caring. "My workaholic cousin does."

"Naruto?" called a female voice. We turned and saw a woman with a pink pig following her. Naruto smiled and folded his arms behind his head. "Hey Shizune." Shizune was frowning. "What are you doing here? Unauthorized shinobi broke in here last night. You shouldn't be here if you're not called since people are working." What a cheerful lady. The pig's pretty cute too. Looks good. Probably would look better on my plate. Yum. Uh Oh I just made myself hungry.

"We just came to look around." Naruto said. "We came to visit Akizakura's father."

"Cousin."

"Cousin. He works here."

Shizune looked at me. "What's your name?" I shrugged my shoulders as if I was guessing. "Akizakura." Shizune's face looked grim. "Is your cousin Risuke?" I nodded. Shizune looked at me sadly. "I don't like being the one to tell you this…but we can't get in contact with Risuke's aunt…your mother."

Yeah, she likes to travel and leave town a lot.

"Since you're his family member you should know that…the ninjas that broke in here last night were seeking information. We don't know what they were looking for yet but they came in contact with Risuke."

I suddenly felt very sick. "Akizakura, last night Risuke was murdered."

I felt like throwing up.

--

_**I'm sorry for ignoring this story for months and I'm sorry this one is short! (The next one will be extra long and more awesome.) Summer is coming so I'll have more free time and I shall try to avoid avoiding this story. I'm also going to go back and fix mistakes in the last chapters.**_

_**I also have a new kitty. He's about six weeks old and he only does three things. Play, sleep and eat…like most cats.**_


	16. Kidnapped

I'm not sure how people around me wanted me to act

I'm not sure how I should've reacted. Should I have cried? Probably. But I don't like crying in front of people. I walked quickly out of the room. Naruto was the one who quickly followed after me. "Akizakura!" I ignored him. This was no good. I had to get home. "Akizakura, wait!" Naruto called again. He grabbed my shoulder and made me face him. It was good I walked away fast out of the view of all the others. I had already started to cry.

Naruto looked sorry he stopped me. He looked down sadly as if he had forgotten what he was going to say to me. After a moment he finally found words. "Hey…Akizakura…It'll be okay…we'll find who did this so don't worry okay?"

"Yeah…" I tried wiping my eyes but the tears wiped away were soon replaced by more tears. Stupid eyeballs. Be dry! Naruto looked sadly at me. "Don't worry so much Naruto…" I said. "I'll get over this." I smiled at him. "I'll be back to my mentally challenged self in no time. Besides ninja's die all the time right?"

Naruto looked down. "But…even though it hasn't really happened to me much….I know that losing someone dear to you will take awhile to get over." Gee. Naruto sounds smart. Makes me feel dumb. "Maybe…" I muttered. I started to walk off. "I'm headin' home. I'll see you later Naruto." Naruto didn't chase after me this time.

I got home and quickly threw some cold water on my face and went to bed. It was only around noon. When I woke up it was really dark. I checked my clock. Two thirty. I wiped sleep from my eyes and got dressed. I realized I was the only one home. Mom was visiting her sister and Risuke was…

I tied on my red bandana and headed outside and ran down the street. It was late but I wasn't tired. I decided I wanted to see somebody. But who could I see?

I quickly thought of Sai. I wanted to see Sai. Even if he has no emotions. Even if he wouldn't understand. I wanted to talk to him. He didn't seem like a guy who would be bothered by me…but it is 2: 30. Maybe I should just go back home. Sai probably wouldn't even be awake.

I stopped running.

Someone was following me. How long had they been there? I whipped my head around. Of course no one was there. They were hiding somewhere. I probably already gave away the fact that I knew they were there because I turned around. Carelessness on my part. I really wasn't in the mood. The second they made a mistake I'd attack. Sounded lame in my head but who would be attacking _me_ at a time like this?

A ruffle of leaves…he was above me. I swiftly threw shuriken in the direction. The shinobi jumped out of the tree in front of me. When I saw his headband I got a little annoyed. Shouldn't Konoha's security be tighter than this? We're one of the biggest shinobi villages for crying out loud.

It was a masked sound ninja.

I threw more shuriken at him before rushing in myself. He succeeded in deflecting my attacks with the kunai but I gave him a hard punch to the face making him fall back. It was times like this that I was grateful that back at the academy I had one of the highest taijutsu skills for females.

Good thing too. I sucked at everything else.

Although the sound shinobi tried to regain his footing I didn't stop on the punches. I gave him a swift kick knocking him down. "Why's a sound shinobi so far from his country?" Hey, I actually didn't say something stupid in front of an enemy. Risuke's death must've really affected me.

The sound shinobi stayed silent. I scowled. "You should answer since I basically kinda won."

"I haven't lost."

Sharp pain stabbed my back. Ow. He must've had a friend or shadow clone. I should've payed more attention. I must be the worst ninja I know. My back hurt and I was still tired. I made sure to fall on my front and not my back so I wouldn't make my wounds worse. Before I could turn around to see my attacker someone hit my head knocking me unconscious.

--

I awoke in a cell. Gee. I'm still alive. The gods love me. However my weapons were gone. I winced when I tried to sit up. The wounds on my back were still there. I felt my back and decided that they were shuriken and kunai wounds.

Chakra formed at me hands and I reached back and began to heal myself. The wounds weren't as deep as they could be and for that I was grateful. I studied my room more. It looked similar to Sai's when he was in Orochimaru's hideout. Eep. I just realized how bad my situation may be.

If I'm in one of Orochimaru's hideout and not dead that means they think I must have information on something. Did they plan on torturing me for information? Dear god I hope not. I bruise so easily.

After I was done healing my wounds I tried opening the door.

It opened.

I stood there for a moment. Maybe for an hour or so in amazement at my luck. Were they stupid? Maybe. Was I in a genjutsu? No. I'm a bad ninja but even I've had enough training to sense when I was trapped in an illusion.

It was still amazing when one forgot to the lock the prisoner in…or maybe they wanted me to wander around till I found an exit.

Yeah right.

I really don't like the idea of just waiting in the cell so I decided this would be the best time to escape. A chance like this doesn't come along very often. When I walked out quietly I realized I was just in one long dark hallway with a few dim lights lit here and there.

I looked both ways carefully. Only two ways to go. Left or right. I couldn't see the end of the long halls. I chose left because…well I didn't really have a reason.

As I actually began walking down the hall I realized it wasn't the same hideout when we found Sasuke. It's was similar but of course Orochimaru would have to find a new hideout since we found his old one. Yikes. I might be in the sound country. That would mean someone making a rescue mission for me would be low. I'm not sure my country would go to war with another just to save a so called kunoichi. The thought was kinda depressing.

Eventually I came into larger rooms filled with a lot more doors. What was I supposed to do? I had no map or magical fairy to tell me where to go.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

I opened the door across from me.

It led to a large room full of large pipes and tubes. There were also quite a few cylinder shaped machines filled with water. I started to pass one when it started talking back.

"Who are you?"

I jumped and stared at the tube. "Me?"

"But of course. Who else would I be talking to?"

It was a male's voice and I felt that he was smiling as he spoke. I stared at the inside of the machine. No one was inside the water. I frowned. "Is water talking to me?"

"This is simply the result when you're experimented on one too many times. I'm basically trapped here." The person laughed. "I trust you're not one of Orochimaru's?"

"Eww…no way. He's creepy." I touched the glass on the machine. "How can water talk?"

"I'm not really water. I'm called Suigetsu." He was silent then. I smiled awkwardly. "Well talking to…um…water or whatever is very interesting but I'm going to go try and get that last bit of sanity I just lost so…bye."

"Hang on." he called. I stopped. "If you free me from this prison I'll help you in return." I raised my eyebrow. "How so?"

"Since you're not an ally of Orochimaru it must be hard to move around here without a guide and if you free me I promise I won't kill you and maybe I'll even protect you." "I stared at the tank full of water. "Wow…now I really want to free you but I can't help but think I'll be safer if you just stay…your watery self."

"Don't be like that." Suigetsu said. "You're a prisoner just like me. Why shouldn't we help each other?" I thought for a moment. This guy was locked up here for a reason but if I free him my chances of survival might rise…or plummet. I sighed. "Look, can you just tell me the way out?"

"I suppose…" he said. "There's a lever to your right that will open a door outside but I can't guarantee you'll make it far without getting caught." I looked to my right and saw a lever. I pulled it down. A few small openings appeared at the bottom of Suigetsu's tube and the water flowed out.

Uh oh.

Oh…wait. It really is just a puddle. Did Suigetsu make me kill him? Oops. Before I could run and look for an exit the water started to form in a shape of a boy. A naked boy. I tried to keep my eyes above the waist.

He had light colored hair that was the same length as mine and it appeared that he had very sharp teeth. Scary.

He was still kneeling on the floor and he looked up and met my eyes. I gulped and he smiled. I frowned at him. "Jerk. You tricked me."

"You were probably going to just leave me here anyway. If a shinobi has a chance to escape he needs to grab it." I agree with him even though now he might kill me.

He stood up. I felt my face turn a bit red (okay, maybe really red) and quickly held up my hands. "Put some clothes on!" I started to move away but two things made me fall. One: I stepped on my foot wrong which caused it pain and Two: The water had made the floor kinda slippery.

How lame. Years from now when my friends finally find my body they'd ask. _"How was she killed?"_ and someone would reply _"She was stabbed to death by a nudist."_

My thoughts on the future ended when I bruised my rear. Suigetsu laughed and started to walk towards me. I frowned harder at him. "Are you stupid?! You're butt naked! I'll fight to the death with you but put on some clothes!"

All of a sudden he froze. He couldn't move and I realized I couldn't either. From the look on Suigetu's face I could tell he could also see that this was paralysis jutsu. I glanced to my left from where footsteps were coming from to see Kabuto with other sound shinobi behind him walking towards us.

"Hi four-eyes. How're ya doin?" I asked. Kabuto glanced at me and said. "Aren't you supposed to be in your cell?"

"I would but some retard forgot to lock me in but I'm not gonna say any names…" I playfully leered at him. "Kabuto." Kabuto ignored me and looked to the sound shinobi behind him. "Put Suigetsu back in his cage. I'll take the girl back to her cell." Kabuto walked over, fiercely grabbed my arm (ow) and started to walk off dragging me behind him. The paralysis jutsu was still kinda working so I couldn't kick him where it hurts and make a run for it.

I doubt I'd be able to get far anyway.

I glanced at Kabuto. He was still ignoring me. I looked around the hallways we were walking. "So…why am I here again?"

"Orochimaru-sama will decide what will happen to you from here on out and that includes when you will be told why you're here." Kabuto replied. I rolled my eyes. "Why can't you tell me?"

He stayed quiet.

"I'll be your friend if you tell me." Kabuto glanced at me for a moment and then smiled. I realized then that he kinda creeps me out. "Dealing with you shouldn't be very hard." he said. I frowned. "You're mean but since I'm so easy to deal with does that mean you won't ever be locking my cell door?"

"I'm not the one who placed you in your room." Kabuto stated. "Then who did?" I asked. Kabuto looked forward and I followed his gaze and saw Sasuke looking at us.

He still looked the same when I last saw him. Still had his dark and all knowing eyes with his confident gloomy aura. I smiled. "Ha ha…_Sasuke_ forgot to lock me in? Wow." I'm never gonna let him live this down.

Sasuke walked towards us. "Where's Orochimaru?" Kabuto smiled again. "He's off on business. Shouldn't you be with him?" Sasuke stayed silent and looked at Kabuto calmly. Kabuto shook his head. "Take Akizakura back to her room."

Sasuke didn't move. "Now." Kabuto said firmly. "I don't take orders from you." Sasuke replied. Kabuto smiled at him. "Orochimaru did mention something about you being a bit more rebellious than usual. If you fail to do even a small task like this, what can you really expect to do against someone like Itachi?"

"Yeah Sasuke, if you go against your brother now he probably won't even bat an eyelash." I said. Sasuke and Kabuto both looked at me. I gave him a small smile. "Sorry Sasuke, I didn't mean to take Kabuto's side but I was feeling left out." Sasuke looked back at Kabuto. "As soon as it's noon I'm going to Orochimaru." Sasuke grabbed my arm and began to walk me back to my cell. I, once again, decided to start a conversation. "When do you think Naruto will bring you back?"

Sasuke looked at me through the corner of his eye. "He won't be able to." I frowned at Sasuke. "Why not?"

"He's simply not capable."

"Harsh." I smiled at him again. "I think the future Hokage has a pretty good chance of bringing you back."

"You shouldn't encourage him." Sasuke said darkly. "What's harsh is when he'll realize just how completely powerless he is and how unreachable his dreams are."

"No dream is unreachable." I stated. "Some are just harder to reach than others." Hey, I just went into fortune cookie telling mode again. "Bonds are one reason why Naruto is so strong."

"Stop being a child." said Sasuke while opening the door to my cell. "Shinobi don't have a need for bonds."

"No, you're just stupid." Sasuke opened up my cell door and shoved me in. Well, someone had tree stuck up their ass.

"Hey, Sasuke."

He glanced at me. "Those purple pants make your butt look big." He closed the door. Heh heh heh.

Then locked it. Heh he-...dang.

I walked over to my bed and sat on it while waiting for the last effects of the paralysis jutsu to wear off I reached into one of my pockets and felt three senbon needles. I pulled one out and began to twiddle with it while planning my amazing (if not low in succeeding) escape.

--

_**I wasn't gonna have Suigetsu get freed for a short while but he's such a cool character. I like him and I wanted Akizakura to have the honor of meeting him.**_

_**Thank you those who reviewed!**_

_**My family's insane. We got a puppy to play with our kitten.**_


	17. Escape

I moved my fingers around. Then my toes. Eventually I tried to sit up. I was a little slow at moving but at least the paralysis jutsu was wearing off.

I lay back down.

Staying in a cell made me wonder about how long I've been here. When I was out I heard Sasuke mention something about it almost being noon. Of course it didn't really help me too much since I couldn't even guess how long I was knocked out. I had to seriously think things through.

Something I usually try to avoid since I'm not really the best strategist. Shinobi's must learn to calmly access any situation given …Oh my god it's a spider!

Wait…no it was just a shadow… given to them and make sure to understand the enemy well enough and try to predict their next move. Especially in cases of being a prisoner before they torture you for information or just plain kill you.

But I was still alive. Why?

If I wasn't such a coward I might try to stay and find out and get other valuable information and bring it back to my village but with skills like mine there's not much I believed I could do. I wanted to get out of here as soon as possible before I get a chance to meet the big boss. Orochimaru.

He's creepy.

I twiddled with one of the senbon needles I had with me. Part of me told myself I'm pretty lucky to have some type of weapon that didn't get taken but the other part of me reminded myself I'm in an enemy's hideout and three needles won't get me very far.

I sighed.

I figured I'd better not bother waiting for anyone to come to my rescue. I wonder if the shinobi who took me covered their tracks well.

Two of the senbon needles were normal size but the other was about half the size as the first two. This was because this type of senbon was hidden in your mouth. Although most used normal sized senbon the small one was easier to keep in a mouth. Of course I didn't like putting any needles in my mouth for fear of swallowing it but…

I got off my hard bed and stretched to make sure the paralysis wore off. All seemed well.

I moved towards the door and jiggled the door knob to test to see how strong the lock was. Then I mentally slapped myself. I have to do something that may very well be impossible for me.

Don't draw attention to myself.

Maybe I'll get lucky. Maybe I won't run into any trouble and get home safely with no serious injuries. Maybe I'll even run into information that my village needs.

Maybe I'll learn how to fly by flapping my arms as well.

This was a pain. If I was going to escape by myself I should be prepared to fight to the death. I placed the small needle in my mouth and hid it on one side of my tongue. The normal sized needles went back in my pocket. I looked at the door and decided I'd relive a moment I experienced with my dear workaholic annoying cousin Risuke. Bless his soul.

I placed the two of my palms against the door and gathered chakra into my hands. Soon feeling how warm my hands were getting with all the energy forming and swirling around in my hands all at once I shot it into the door. A swift but strong force shot me back as the door broke into dozens of tiny pieces. I covered my head with my arms and felt pain come into my back as I hit my hard bed.

Mentally cursing I rubbed my now sore back and looked at what once kept my imprisoned. Pieces of the door were sprawled almost everywhere. I crept and looked around outside the door. Had anybody heard? I could sense no chakra and hear no footsteps. I carefully left my room and walked in a different direction so I wouldn't run into Suigetsu or Kabuto again.

Not that going in the opposite direction from last time would change anything but you never know. I tried to keep as quiet as possible and often sidled against the wall especially when I came to corners to make sure no one would jump out and stab me. Any doors I came across I chose to ignore. Some doors had human torturing sounds coming from behind it or yelling. I quickly paced past those doors doing my best to hide my chakra.

It almost made me happy that Orochimaru decided to keep most of his hallways dark and creepy. It made it easier to hide. As I started walking from out of one of the many corners again a blast sounded. The loud bang surprised my so much I lost my footing and almost swallowed the small needle in my mouth. Immediately yelling and screaming came after the blast and I heard footsteps from sound shinobi running down the hallway in front of me. I hurriedly leaned against the wall in the shadows praying I wouldn't be found.

Apparently that blast wasn't supposed to happen so I figured they were being attacked. That may have been one of the main reasons why they couldn't find me. Too focused on the intruder(s).

If that was true I couldn't believe my luck. They would be too busy looking for the intruders than search for a missing prisoner that they didn't even know was missing.

Least I hoped nobody noticed yet.

After I decided the sound shinobi were far away enough to start moving again I went the other direction and broke into a jog. By now I was wondering if I've ever been more nervous in my life. I've never been kidnapped by anyone before so the whole thing was new to me.

The only time I think I may have been this nervous was when I forgotten…er ignored the papers I was supposed to study on for a test…

Actually no…that would be a lie. I fail my tests with quiet dignity.

My train of thought ended when a shinobi dressed almost all in black jumped out of nowhere (well okay maybe he became behind that corner) and gave me a hard punch to my gut. As the air left me I fell back and slammed into a wall and tried not to hit the floor too hard. Before I could even get up the shinobi was already above me with a kunai to my neck.

This is so unfair. I had escaped from my cell twice already but I still haven't been able to be free. I am by far the worst ninja I know.

"Who are you?" he ordered firmly but quietly. I stared at him. "Um…" Name….name…what's a good name? I didn't want to tell him my real name because even though he was probably one of the intruders attacking the hideout didn't mean he was on friendly terms with Konoha. Maybe as long as I don't reveal which village I'm from it would be safe to give him my real name…

He pointed at my waist which meant he was really pointing to my Konoha headband. "What are you doing out of your village?" He sounded like he was in his forties but since he was wearing a mask of course I couldn't really tell.

I decided it was best not to tease or mess with this guy like I normally do with other people (especially since he had a kunai knife to my neck). "I'm a prisoner here."

"You escaped?" He spoke as if he didn't believe me. Before I could reply two sound ninja's appeared. I'm guessing he realized that they weren't here to save me so he got up and attacked them. Not wanting to get in the way and wanting to get out of here even more now that I was in a middle of intruders attacking a place that was keeping me prisoner I ran as fast as I could down the hall. For about five minutes I kept my senses up trying to figure out where more shinobi are so I could stay clear of them.

Fortunately an explosion happened close enough for me to realize that it made a giant hole in the hideout but far enough from me to not get injured. It was just around the corner. As sunlight poured into the hideout I grew more excited by the fact that I was almost out of here. I darted around the corner then paused. My excitement left me as quickly as it came as I stared into the eyes of the cucumber boy Sasuke.

His sword was drawn and there was what looked like dozens of intruder shinobi behind him either dead or passed out. I couldn't tell. Too nervous to check. Another thing I realized was that Sasuke wasn't out of breath or anything and there was not one scratch on him. Had he really come so far in his skills? Dang. At this point I started wondering if I'd ever be able to escape and get back to Konoha. I missed my family. I missed my friends. I missed Sai.

I knew I'd never be able to beat Sasuke as I am now but he was the only thing standing between me and my freedom.

At least until something else popped up.

It was then that I decided that even though I haven't been here that long I wanted out and I was gonna do anything I had to do to leave and not even Sasuke was gonna stop me.

At least I hope not.

I had a plan and I decided to follow it but the problem was that I had to somehow lower Sasuke's guard.

"So…" Sasuke started. "You escaped from your cell again." I gave him an uneasy smile. "Seems that way." Sasuke started to walk towards me. Crap. I still had no idea how I was gonna distract him. I was getting more nervous with each step that brought him closer to me. I tried to think back what I know about Sasuke. See if there was anything that could make him pause or think for a moment. Get his mind of me.

"I suppose you wouldn't know why I'm here?" I asked nervously. "You should know better than to ask something like that." Sasuke replied calmly. "Gee Sasuke, how old are you? Still at the top of the shinobi your age." Sasuke looked like he didn't see the need to reply.

I continued talking. "Has your eating habits changed? Your hair seems a little bit spikier than before. Using a different shampoo?"

I guess this was getting pretty pathetic. He wasn't paying much attention to my dumb questions anyway. I eyed the bodies behind him some more. "You've really gotten skilled over the years." I gave him a small smile. "You must be proud of yourself."

Where was I going with this? Although Sasuke was very calm I felt like he was getting tired of listening to me really fast. I reached for one of my larger senbon needles in my pocket as fast as I could but Sasuke already slammed me into the wall with one arm against my neck firmly and held me there. I could still breathe but it was harder then it should be.

"Sasuke…" I gasped. "If you continue this attitude how are you ever going to make any friends?" He had friends. He acted like he didn't. "You were so nice to Naruto…"

I carefully placed the senbon in position in my mouth. "He said you were an amazing kisser."

That did it. Not only did Sasuke's guard go down but he seemed both embarrassed and pissed. The senbon shot out of my mouth but Sasuke, that jerk, saw it coming and dodged it.

Almost.

A small cut appeared on his cheek. "You almost got me…" He said.

I closed my eyes and smiled at him. "You mean I didn't?" Sasuke's eyes widened slightly in realization. Another thing that's dangerous for hiding needles in your mouth…if you choose to dip them in poison or in paralyzing powder. Fortunately I had a little of the latter. Fast working stuff to. Sasuke's hold on me weakened and I pushed him down on his butt.

He fell harder than I wanted him to.

"Sorry if you have a bruise on your butt by morning." I said as I ran off outside. Into that beautiful thing called freedom. Jumping out of the giant hole in the wall caused by one of the blasts made a pretty convenient doorway. Sadly yet another blast sounded right behind me. It shot me off my legs and threw me forward. I landed face forward on a pile of sharp rocks surrounding the area.

Now I was in pain.

Not only was I bruised and cut almost everywhere now but I seemed to have cracked some of my ribs. Oh…and there seems to be a gash on my leg.

I tried to rise but it was hard. I was never good with pain. More blasts sounded off as I ran as fast as I could, ignoring the pain, off for nearby trees that were around. At first I was worried if somebody would see me and capture me again.

Nobody came.

As I ran I came to a small forest and immediately darted inside for more hiding places. Running got me thinking what an idiot I was. I paralyzed Sasuke. Maybe I should've dragged him back to Konoha with me. Naruto and Sakura would welcome me as a hero.

Hell. I'd be a god to them. Make them do my bidding.

Then again I had no idea how far away I was from Konoha and the powder that paralyzed him could wear off before I arrived. And then where would I be?

Dead probably.

I staggered to a log that had fallen down and carefully leaned against it. I needed to catch my breath but with each breath I took it almost felt like small knives were stabbing or poking my ribs. Healing chakra formed at my hand and I placed it on my sore ribs. Pain began to slowly recede.

Yay.

I checked my leg with the cut on it. Blood was almost flowing down it. It didn't hurt too badly but I started first aid with medical jutsu anyway.

I didn't bother healing the bruises or cuts. I was still more worried about where I was. I started limping around again. Hopefully to some town with some good natured people who would be so kind enough to tell me where I was.

Before I knew it I broke into a run. Eventually evening came and I plopped down on some grass to catch my breath. How big was this forest? It didn't look very big when I entered it. I laid down on my stomach and let myself fall asleep.

Guess I was a little more tired than I thought.

--

_**TA DA!!**_

_**Since I haven't kept my promise about updating I won't bother with excuses or reasons but I will say "Have I mentioned how much I love you reviewing and those who message me people?" You're all so kind.**_

_**On another note…what kind of Sai story is this?! Sai hasn't been in here for almost three chapters!!**_


	18. Home Again

_**I walked into Risuke's office. He hadn't been home for days. Being only eleven years old I w curious to where he'd gone and went looking for him. "Risuke?" I actually didn't expect to find him in a mess this big. Papers, books, and scrolls were everywhere. I walked over to his desk around a mountain of books and saw him lying on his desk sleeping.**_

_**Risuke was in charge of decoding lost documents of Konoha and he had no one to help him. I often wondered why the third hokage wouldn't hire any help for him. He was always a workaholic. I walked over and looked at the papers on his desk. The paper on top caught my eye. It looked like something he had recently decoded. Some parts were still missing though.**_

"**Senju clan- - - - - - fought with Uchiha- - - - - - - - many years. Konoha-----------------first Hokage and Madara- - - - - - - Itachi hired for his clan's destruction- - - -Konoha orders- - - - - - - - - - - - -his mission was the destruction of Uchiha."**

_**What was this paper? I was aware that someone named Itachi Uchiha had killed everyone in his family except for his brother whose name I did not know. But the few words I read were implying a lot more.**_

_**I couldn't read the rest. Risuke's hand had slapped the paper to keep me from reading more..**_

_**Uh oh.**_

_**He scrunched it up quickly and threw it into a fire.**_

_**He looked terribly tired. But was he too tired to get angry at me for sneaking through his stuff? "Risuke?" He looked at me, dark circles around his eyes. "You weren't done decoding that." I said.**_

_**He walked over and kneeled down in front of me. "Akizakura." He paused then continued. "Do you still plan on becoming a ninja?" I nodded. He sighed. "Akizakura, the life of a ninja is hard. It's dangerous and you'll be lucky if you don't lose any friends. Each ninja village has terrible secrets and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."**_

_**I cocked my head at him. "What's wrong?"**_

_**Of course I could tell what was wrong.**_

_**Whatever he was decoding was something that had been lost for a long time and no one was supposed to read it. I got the feeling it was a type of thing that wasn't supposed to be on paper but all ninja's break at least one big rule in their ninja career.**_

_**I'm sure not even Risuke himself, whose job was filled with knowing secrets, was never supposed to know about it.**_

_**Risuke looked down. "Only the third hokage, his advisors, and the leader of Roots know what was on that paper but I doubt they know it survived all these years." He grabbed my shoulders firmly. "Akizakura, you must never…ever speak of whatever you read to anyone. Doing so could result in many deaths."**_

"……..might wake up soon."

Someone's waking me up. I'm still tired and I was having an interesting dream. Maybe if I stay quiet they'll go away and the dream will come back. "………………"

"Ak…….ura?"

Whose voice is that? It sounded familiar. I snuggled deeper into the covers.

Wait…covers? Wasn't I supposed to be outside? Ah, who cares? I'm comfy. A hand patted my head. "Hey, if you're awake you should act like your awake, Akizakura. You were worrying people." I opened my eyes a little only to glare at the owner of the hand who made it impossible for me to fall asleep again. My glare left quickly when I realized who it was. "Genma?" I muttered.

Genma Shiranui looked back at me with his small smile. He was still chewing on a toothpick as usual. As I tried to sit up I realized some parts of me were covered in bandages and there were white walls. I was in a Konoha hospital room. Sunlight hurt my eyes as it shone through the blinds next to me. "Um…" I started.

"Explanations?" Genma asked guessing. "That'd be kinda nice." I said looking around. I wanted to make sure this wasn't some illusion put up by the enemy. It seemed real.

"You were found around the mountain area by tracker shinobi who were sent immediately off to find you once we noticed you were missing. I won't bore you with the details since you don't bother much to small facts anyway."

He knows me so well.

"But a couple miles from where you found was one of Orochimaru's hideout where we guessed you were being kept. It was destroyed and no one was found inside."

"No one…really?"

"Not counting any dead bodies. Quite a battle. The shinobi who intruded lost I'm sure you must've guessed. And of course there was no good information left behind either. Orochimaru is an expert at leaving behind no clues." Genma sighed. "You were missing for around three to five days. Of course I didn't hear about it right away because I've been so busy."

"I see…"

Genma thought for a moment. "Now that I think about it that was the same reason why you and your team couldn't take the Chuunin exams for awhile. I was helping getting the exam ready so there was no way I'd be able get you and your team ready in time."

Oh….such a terrible loss. I wouldn't have been able to work more. Oh woe is me and…all that stuff. "It's okay." I said as I lay back down onto the feathery pillow.

Genma yawned as he stood up and headed towards the door. "I better get going. I was lucky to find time to visit you at all. I'll see you around." He paused. "And I'm sorry about Risuke. Good job on healing yourself too. The medics didn't have to do much. You took care of yourself well."

I smiled smugly. "Yup yup I'm so amazing." I thought back to how I passed out and how long I slept. Then I remembered I had a dream. I tried to remember the dream I had. It had involved Risuke. Poor dead Risuke. "Genma?"

He turned around. "Hmm?"

"Did they ever find out why I was kidnapped?" I asked. Genma frowned calmly. "We're guessing it was because of Risuke."

Risuke? The dead guy? The one who can't have any fun and works all the time? Ha ha…

"What did Risuke **do** exactly?" I asked raising my right eyebrow. Genma looked troubled. "You understood the danger of Risuke's job didn't you?" he asked.

Genma didn't usually look this troubled so I got a bit nervous. "He…decodes documents so old they were made around sixty years ago. I think it was before Konoha was even formed…so it was to be expected that enemies of other countries would try to torture him with information on Konoha. For that reason he wasn't allowed to leave the village because of the information he might've kept." I paused not sure if I liked where this was going.

"Risuke was breaking the rules."

I looked at Genma funny and sat back up in my bed. "Hey, are you changing the subject?" Genma shook his head. "No. What I'm trying to say is that Risuke broke the rules every time he shared information with you of those secret documents." Genma frowned at me. "Though I'm sure you were aware of that already."

Of course I was aware that Risuke shared super dark secrets with me. I couldn't help but listen and ask him about it. I loved secrets. I still do. And the fact that they were super dark secrets made them all the more charming.

But how could anyone have known? I probably mentioned to my mom that Risuke was sharing stuff with me. But she wouldn't have told anyone. Risuke probably opened his big fat mouth. He couldn't bring himself to lie so if someone asked him if he shared information with anyone he'd no doubt tell the truth. Especially if it was someone who was of higher authority.

Risuke is a wimp. Wimp, wimp, wimpity, wimp, wimp. Ha ha!

I hope his zombie doesn't come back to get me in revenge. That'd be a little awkward.

"Akizakura, you understand that the intruders tortured Risuke for information right?"

I frowned sadly. "Aww Genma!! I was just starting to get over his death!" I slumped down on my pillow. Genma frowned at me. "I'm not gonna sugar coat anything that happened but-"

"I know. I know." I interrupted rudely. "I think I get it now though. The intruders found out that they needed more information but they already killed Risuke but they somehow found out that he shared some of the information he discovered with me so I became a target."

I glanced out the window and noticed that it was very sunny day. For some reason it made me wonder how many people even realized I was gone. My mom must've realized. I'm sure Kakashi realized since he could always tell with stuff like that. I thought it'd be pretty cool if Sai realized to.

"Oh, before I forget." Genma said. "Some of the Anbu would like you to explain everything that happened."

I frowned. "I don't know anything. I was kept in a cell for most of the time. Besides all the info they're probably gonna get is the same info they got when the looked at Orochimaru's hideout." Genma shrugged. "The Anbu just want to make sure their getting all the information they can."

I scrunched my eyebrows together and made a big frown resulting in a very unattractive expression. "The Anbu are a pain!" I whined.

"You should make that face at boys you like." Genma said while smiling as he shut the door. I sighed and decided that I should start to take of the few bandages I had. Nothing was really that bad. I didn't see the need for the bandages really. Also figuring it was time that I moved and got some exercise I sat up in my bed. Before I actually got anywhere the door opened again and I thought it was gonna be Genma again to tell me something he forgot but no. It was Sai.

I smiled and gave him a small wave. "Hey, haven't seen you for awhile have I?" I studied him. He had the same expression he always wore when I first met him. He wasn't wearing his head band or anything. He would have seemed relaxed to me if he wasn't wearing such a…what would you call it? Calmly serious? I frowned at him. "What? No flowers?"

"I've already contributed to the flowers Naruto and Sakura left you." Sai stated.

"Flowers?" I looked around and sure enough right next to me on a table there were flowers. How did I miss that?

About three bouquets of them. One consisted of red roses and some type of purple tulip. Weird…must've been from my mom. Another was basically a bunch of white pretty flowers and the last one was an assortment of daises, chrysanthemums, amaryllis, anemones, a few bluebells, camellias, marigolds, a bunch of carnations and is that what I think it is? It is! Geraniums! A very pretty red flower that I do enjoy. I wonder how fun a Yamanaka had while making all these…

I reached over for the card that belonged to the bouquet of many flowers and ripped open the small envelope. I remembered Sai was still standing there. "Oops…sorry. I should be a better host huh?" I patted my bed gesturing him to sit down. "Welcome to my humble hospital room. It's kind of small but please make yourself comfortable."

For awhile Sai didn't move. Just when I was gonna give up and unfold my legs on the bed Sai sat down. Aah!! My precious leg room!!

"Go ahead and put your feet on the bed Sai. I don't care if you have your shoes on and I'm gonna try to get out of here today. How long have I been asleep? Any idea?"

"At least a full day." Sai answered almost solemnly. What's up with him? I read my card. "Oh hey! It's from you and Naruto and Sakura! How sweet."

Sai glanced at me. "When you were put in the hospital we visited you."

"You visited me?" I think I'm actually touched. "Why?"

Kind of a dumb question but I wanted to hear Sai's answer.

Sai looked at me. "You told me once that when a friend is sick their friends visit them." Something told me that Naruto or Sakura may have tried to teach him more about emotions when I was gone. "You also said flowers make good gifts so the three of us went and bought some at the Yamanaka flower shop." Wow. He really remembered that stuff? Even I forgot about that. Sai really does listen and take in everything I say…

Hm…this is an intriguing development.

"For some reason Ino was excited to see me." Sai said calmer than usual.

"…"

Ino? Really? I guess she did appear to have a crush on him when we went out to lunch. Apparently she was still crushing. I have to be honest. It bugged me.

I sighed as I reached for another card. This one belonged to the bouquet of white flowers. I flipped the card open. "What do you know? It's from my first teammates and Genma." They remembered me! Yay!

"So Ino was excited?" I changed the subject too quickly. "Actually I couldn't tell." Sai said. "Naruto pointed it out."

I laughed. "Y'know sometimes I forget your not that skilled at reading emotions."

"That was why you supposed to be helping me."

I picked up the card from my mother and dusted the spare petals off. "Did you learn anything while I was gone or are you totally hopeless without me?"

"When you disappeared…" Sai started but stopped. Why is he pausing?! "Don't stop there Sai!" I said "What were you going to say?"

"When you first disappeared…I felt what I felt a long time ago."

I looked at him funny. "A long time ago? That's real specific." I threw the cards back on the table.

"I felt the same feeling I felt when my brother died." I tilted my head to the side and thought. His brother. His not-related-by-blood brother. "So…what did you feel?"

"Nothing."

I frowned. "Nothing?"

"I didn't know what to feel. So I felt nothing."

I thought for awhile. "So…if I made you feel the same way how the death of your brother made you feel…does that mean we're getting somewhere with your emotions?"

"You're asking me question that requires me to know about emotions." Sai looked at me. "You're supposed to be the expert. You tell me."

I shrugged.

"And if you remember correctly you were the one who told me when someone with a lack of emotions like myself loses someone dear to them they go into a state of uncaring." Wait a minute. Did Sai just scoot a little closer to me or was I getting paranoid again? Yeah. I think I'm getting paranoid. Sai gave me one of his fake smiles again. "Then if what you said was true that would mean I've learned to _care_ for you."

Sai may have forgotten how to express emotions but surely he knew what it meant when you're in someone's personal space. I decided to quit the conversation before it got too awkward for me. "We can talk more about this later. Let's go out to eat somewhere with Naruto and Sakura."

"Actually the Hokage wants to see you." Sakura said appearing in the doorway.

I gaped at her. "Wow, Sakura. Appearing out of nowhere like that. You're like a ninja."

"I am a ninja!"

She did seem troubled by something I quickly realized. But by what? Me, her good teammate who was not dead and home safely. I smiled uneasily. "Um…Sakura…usually when a friend is alive after being kidnapped by a criminal they're supposed to be happy." I looked over to Sai. "Are you taking notes Sai? This is important emotional stuff right here."

"It's not about you." Sakura sighed. "You're not important."

"Ouch."

Sakura frowned. "Sorry, that came out wrong. What I meant was…Orochimaru's been killed."

Wow. That was fast.

I raised my arms and clapped my hands like a little girl. "Yaaay." I lowered them and gave Sakura weird look. "So tell me why the death of a man who caused trouble and despair to all troubles you."

"You don't get it at all do you?" Sakura asked. "Sasuke is the one who killed Orochimaru."

Big surprise there. Not.

I'm pretty sure Sasuke never liked him in the first place. Must've been hell dealing with Orochimaru and Kabuto by himself all these past years. Not that I care. Orochimaru was getting pretty old anyway. If Sasuke didn't get him his broken hip would.

Sakura looked sadly away. "And…he's still not coming back to Konoha."

"That's not really much of shocker right?" I said. "I mean…Sasuke left in the first place to get stronger. Orochimaru, I'm sure, was just a stepping stone for him."

Sakura glared at me. Scary. "You don't get anything at all do you?" Sakura left the room before I could get another word in. I turned to Sai. "That might've been a little insensitive of me huh?"

"There you go again." Sai said. "Acting like I know what the answer is to a question that requires me to know more than I do."

_**(I'M SORRY. I forgot about this story for around a month and I've been distracted with deviantart. I also would've updated this a day earlier but fanfiction wasn't working!! To those who have been reading this story and waiting for this chapter to come out I'd like to thank you for dealing with my less than average writing skills.)**_


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